The British Museum Library and Colonial Legal
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THE BRITISH MUSEUM LIBRARY AND COLONIAL COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT ILSE STERNBERG THE full story of colonial legal deposit has not yet been written and with the scattered and incomplete nature of the records may never be wholly recounted. What follows in this and in a subsequent article on 'The British Museum Library and the India Office' is an outline of the complicated history of the relevant legislation, the attempts to enforce it and a preliminary evaluation of the benefits these brought to collection building in the British Museum Library.^ Legislation which defined the ownership of intellectual property and linked the control of printing and publishing (copyright) with the deposit of an example of each work in the national library collection was first conceived in France. The Ordonnance de MontpeUier, 1537, decreed that a copy of each work issued should be deposited in the Bibliotheque du Roi. The first legislation in Great Britain to require 'every printer [to] reserve three printed copies [on] the best and largest paper of every book [newly] printed or reprinted . with additions . before any publick vending . [for delivery] to the keeper of his Majesties hbrary, and ... to the vice-chancellors of the two universities' was the Press Licensing Act, 1662.^ It was to apply 'either within this realm of England, or any other of his Majesties dominions, or parts beyond the seas'. This and subsequent press licensing Acts were in force for specified periods only and were renewed from time to time. By 1709 increasing piracy by opportunist printers and publishers caused their more upstanding brethren to seek legal protection through Parliament. The result was the Copyright Act, 8 Anne, c. 21, which changed the emphasis from control of dissemination to the spread of knowledge and extended the deposit privilege to a further six libraries,^ but which only applied to England and Scotland. The privilege of legal deposit came to the British Museum Library with the Old Royal Library, presented in 1757 by King George IL In 1801 the Copyright Act was amended and protection was extended to Ireland or as described in the first clause 'the United Kingdom and the British dominions in Europe'.^ All works published in London were to be registered within one month and those from elsewhere within three months. Eleven libraries were to receive deposit copies. This requirement represented a heavy burden on those publishers who complied and, whenever the opportunity arose, they petitioned Parhament for relief from such an onerous tax. During the latter years of the reign of George III the existing legislation was amended. 61 The Act, passed in 1814,-^ extended copyright from fourteen to twenty-eight years and applied to 'any Part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and every other Part of the British Dominions'. When in the 1830s, the era of Reform, a revision ot the Copyright Act of 1814 was under consideration, the three groups historically interested in such legislation (the authors, the printers/publishers, and the librarians) all lobbied for a result favourable to their needs. The authors, led by such prominent figures as G. P. R. James,^ Harriet Martineau, William Wordsworth, Anthony TroUope and Charles Dickens, were seeking redress against unscrupulous printers and publishers who produced their works (in the United Kingdom and elsewhere) without payment of royalties. The printers and publishers were fighting what they regarded as the unfair tax of legal deposit. Also some of them joined the authors in seeking redress against privateers in their own profession. Finally, the librarians were seeking to safeguard the deposit privilege and to strengthen the penalties for non-compliance. In 1836 a Bill was proposed by Mr Buckingham, Colonel Thompson and Mr Ewart' to repeal that part of the existing law which required the 'gratuitous delivery of Eleven Copies of every published Book to Eleven of the Public Libraries of the Kingdom'. This subsequently became An act to repeal so much of an act . as requires the delivery of a copy of every published book to the libraries ofSion College^ the four universities of Scotland^ and of the King's Inns in Dublin. It was clearly instigated by the publishers although the authors also had an interest as it stated that 'the Provisions of the . [previous] Act have in certain respects operated to the Injury of Authors and Publishers'. The Bill did not change the application of the 1814 Act. The British Museum was kept well informed of such proposals. On 19 May the Museum solicitors, Bray and Warren of Great Russell Street,® delivered to the Museum two copies of the Bill which had been delayed in the printing but which they had just obtained from the House of Commons so that Museum officials could 'consider the effect of the proposed Act'." At this stage the Bill stated that the deposit privilege enjoyed by ten of the libraries should be abolished, and that the British Museum Trustees should be obliged to purchase at cost price one copy of every work supplied to them. The Trustees responded that they considered it their duty to preserve for posterity not only a copy of every new work published, but also a copy of every edition containing the slightest alterations or additions. Strong representations were made on their behalf and also by the other privileged libraries but, when on 20 August the 1836 Act came into force, six of the libraries had lost the right to receive deposit copies. ^^ The Act went some way to meeting the demands of the publishers but did little for the needs of the authors. Between 1837 and 1842 Bills to amend the law of copyright were brought annually into Parliament.^^ Both the authors, who tried to extend their right of sole reproduction to sixty years, and tbe publishers fought hard to ensure that their case was fully considered, but the impetus to reconcile the divergent interests and to see the Bills through the legislative procedure was lacking. As each Bill was brought in Bray and Warren obtained copies and advised officials at the Museum. In 1837 copies of tbe new draft were sent 'with such amendments in it as appear to 62 be necessary on the part of the Museum, and a copy of the clause to be inserted for securing the delivery of every book at the Museum'.^^ The proposed Act was to apply according to the clause of interpretation 'within any part of the British Dominions'. In 1838 two Bills were introduced. The first was yet another attempt to revise the current statutes. Again the Bill did not pass through the necessary stages and so yet another Bill was brought in by the same people in the following year. The second measure proposed in 1838 was A Bill for securing to Authors^ in certain Cases, the Benefit of International Copyright proposed by Poulett Thomson and Lord John Russell. This Bill which was to become known as the International Copyright Act was aimed primarily at stopping the circulation of cheap foreign reprints. In the preamble to the Act it was stated that it was to apply to 'the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and every other Part of the British Dominions'. Registers were to be kept at Stationers' Hall; the entry in the register to cost the sender two shillings and a certificate to prove registry one shilling. The sole copy sent for registration was to be deposited in the Library of the British Museum. Meeting little opposition it quickly became law.^^ That Act and the amended law of 1844 had httle effect. In 1852 An Act to enable Her Majesty to carry into effect a Convention with France on the Subject of Copyright; to extend the International Copyright Acts . .^* did produce results and the British Museum reported to Parliament that 19,839 volumes and 15,314 parts of volumes (mainly French and German titles and musical works) were received between 1854 and 1891 by international deposit.^^ In 1839 Bray and Warren proposed alterations to the Bill brought in during that year, advising Museum officers that their object was 'to provide for the Museum obtaining either under existing law or the new bill a copy of every work published'. The opinion of Sir Frederick Pollock^^ was sought on proposed amendments. Sir Frederick felt that the clause by which penalties were incurred for failure to deliver copies of books required some revision. He feared that the penalty could not be enforced 'in Scotland under the clause as printed and the words "or other action of the like nature^^ [were] added with a view to extend the action to Scotland ',^^ even though the Act was to apply to the 'British Dominions'. The Interpretation Clause now construed this term to mean 'all parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Islands of Jersey and Guernsey, all parts of the East and West Indies and all the colonies, settlements and possessions of the Crown, which now are or hereafter may be acquired'.^^ A separate clause had also been inserted making delivery at the British Museum obligatory although the other libraries still had to request the works which they wanted. The deposit clause provided that the best copy of'the whole of every Book . shall within One calendar Month after the day on which any such Book shall be first sold, published or offered for sale within the Bills of Mortality [i.e. London], or within Three calendar Months if ... in any other part of the United Kingdom, be delivered ... at the British Museum'. The 1830S Reform movement had also affected the British Museum in other ways. The level of service provided for students, scholars and the general public although beginning to improve on that of earlier times was far from adequate and did not compare favourably with what was available abroad.