The Canadian copyright question in the 1890s
- The Canadian copyright question in the 1890s
George Parker is Associate Professor of English at Royal Military College.
NOTES
1. Gordon Roper, “Mark Twain and his Canadian Publishers: A Second Look,” Papers of The Bibliographical Society of Canada, V (1966), pp. 30–89.
2. Canada, Parliament, Sessional Papers (No. 8B). Appendix to the Report of the Minister of Agriculture, 1895. Conference on the Copyright Question (Ottawa: S. E. Dawson, 1896), p. 6.
3. Thad McIlroy, “What the Act Says,” and “What Has Happened,” Quill & Quire, LXI (February 1975), pp. 7, 28.
4. Public Archives of Canada, Laurier Papers, Vol. 74, p. 23024. Sir Wilfrid Laurier to George Morang, Letter of 5 May 1898.
5. The major Colonial and Dominion copyright legislation: 1832: Lower Canada Copyright Act; 1839: Nova Scotia Copyright Act; 1841: Province of Canada Copyright Act; 1848–1850: B.N.A. Provinces each pass the Foreign Reprints Act; 1868: Dominion re-enactment of 1841 Act and 1850 Foreign Reprints Act; 1875: basic Dominion Copyright Act until 1924; 1900: Copyright Act amended; 1921: consolidated Copyright Act, in force since 1924.
6. The major imperial copyright legislation affecting Canada: 1842: The Literary Copyright Act was operative in Canada until 1924; 1847: The Foreign Reprints Act in force in Canada until 1895; 1886: The International Copyright Act (Berne Convention); 1910: consolidated imperial Act to replace the 1842 Act; it was never operative in Canada but was the model for Canada’s 1921 Act.
7. George Parker, “The British North American Book Trade in the 1840s: The First Crisis,” Papers of The Bibliographical Society of Canada, XII (1973), pp. 82–99.
8. Examples of Returns:
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Received in 1885 for the years ended June 30th 1883 and 1884: £106.6.2.
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Received in 1891 for the year ended June 30th 1890: £970.7.0.
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See: Great Britain, Colonial Office, Canadian Copyright. Return of Amounts Received from Canada Since 1877 (London: H.M.S.O., 1895).
9. Province of Canada Trade and Navigation Statistics: (See Chart p. 54).
10. Canada, Parliament, Sessional Papers (No. 11). Correspondence. Copy-right Law in Canada (1869) (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1869), Vol. II, No. 4, p. 5. John Lovell to Sir John Rose, Letter of 11 June 1868.
11. “House of Commons,” The Globe, 14 May 1874, p. 4.
12. P.A.C., Macdonald Papers, Vol. 202. Private Correspondence between the Hon. Sir John Rose and T. H. Farrer, Esq. on the Subject of Colonial Copyright (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1872). T. H. Farrer to Sir John Rose, Letter of 1 February 1872.
13. James J. Barnes, Authors, Publishers and Politicians. The Quest for an Anglo-American Copyright Agreement 1815–1854 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974). This work contains a chapter on “The Canadian Market,” which covers the same topic as my article, “The British North American Book Trade in the 1840s.”
14. Great Britain, Parliament, Copyright Commission. Minutes of the Evidence Taken before the Royal Commission on Copyright Together with an Appendix (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1878), pp. 273–74.
15. P.A.C., Macdonald Papers, Vol. 150, pp. 61278–81. William Kirby to Sir John A. Macdonald, Letter of 24 March 1885. See also Kirby’s Royal Society of Canada address, “Canadian Literature and Copyright,” The Morning Chronicle (Quebec), 1, 2, and 4 February 1884.
16. Minutes of the Evidence Taken before the Royal Commission on Copyright Together with an Appendix, pp. 206, 274, 292.
17. “House of Commons,” The Globe, 14 May 1874, p. 4. James Edgar referred to this in his Commons speech on 23 March 1885, in: Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 1885 (Ottawa: Maclean, Roger, 1885), Vol. I, p. 711. John Lovell told the story to the Privy Council on 22 January 1889, during the Canadian Copyright Association’s deputation to Ottawa. See “The Copyright Question,” Books and Notions, V (February 1889), pp. 5–6.
18. John Ross Robertson mentioned this in his speech before the Privy Council on 22 January 1889, as reported in “An Appeal for Justice. Canadian Publishers’ Claims,” The Evening Telegram, 23 January 1889, p. 4.
19. Both Lord Knutsford and F. R. Daldy advised doing nothing until the American legislation was passed. Great Britain, Colonial...
