be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the
absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually
repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have
been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be
virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. At present the
holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those
who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread
out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to
see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their
ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything
to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and
that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present
race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable
monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in
the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade
legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot. On
which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question
is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the
Pilgrim's Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it
shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage
of the great-grandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years
before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author
when in great distress? Remember too that, when once it ceases
to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary
property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The
public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright
which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new
copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that,
in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting
of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled