The American Public Domain and the Courtesy of the Trade in the Nineteenth Century

Without Copyrights: Piracy, Publishing, and the Public Domain (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013; paper 2016)

54 Pages Posted: 5 May 2017

See all articles by Robert E. Spoo

Robert E. Spoo

University of Tulsa College of Law

Date Written: May 3, 2017

Abstract

The chapter explores the founding rules of America's protectionist copyright law, which openly encouraged the unauthorized reprinting of new foreign works, generated frenzied competition for those free resources, and set in motion a counter-practice of self-restraint among American publishers that came to be called the courtesy of the trade. As a way of regulating destructive competition for unprotected titles, and to give themselves an aura of respectability and fairness, the major publishers adopted trade courtesy, whereby, in its simplest form, the first publisher to announce plans to issue an American edition of an unprotected foreign work acquired informal title to that work — a kind of makeshift copyright grounded on tacit trade agreements and community-based norms. Drawing on the insights of scholars of social norms and common-pool regulation, the chapter offers a detailed account of nineteenth-century courtesy and its regime of entitlements, exceptions, and penalties. Courtesy restored a fragile order to the publishing scene by imitating the main features of copyright law and permitting both publishers and authors to benefit, though inconsistently, from the wholly informal exclusive rights recognized by this self-interested chivalry.

Keywords: copyright, courtesy of the trade, trade courtesy, informal norms, publishing, legal history

JEL Classification: copyright, courtesy of the trade, trade courtesy, informal norms, publishing, legal history

Suggested Citation

Spoo, Robert E., The American Public Domain and the Courtesy of the Trade in the Nineteenth Century (May 3, 2017). Without Copyrights: Piracy, Publishing, and the Public Domain (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013; paper 2016), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2962748

Robert E. Spoo (Contact Author)

University of Tulsa College of Law ( email )

3120 E. Fourth Place
Tulsa, OK 74104
United States

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