Piracy_ The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates - Adrian Johns [101]
The Universal History catalyzed the emergence of a new moral agency within the Dublin trade. And a series of disputes in the following years confirmed Faulkner's and others' revulsion at internal "piracy" as corrosive to craft community and nation. A 1747 feud over rival translations of Don uixote t was one: Peter Wilson persuaded all major booksellers to subscribe for his version, and the rival disappeared. A tussle in 1751 over Haywood's Betiy Thoughtless was another (in which Robert Main, Richardson's Scottish agent, was involved; perhaps Main's status as an outsider lay behind his antagonist's refusal of arbitration). Wilson also engaged in another feud, this time over the Guardian. And Faulkner himself fought the most significant of these battles, with the Ewings over Swift reprints. It was something of a personal issue for Faulkner, who set great store by having been a personal acquaintance of Swift. The Ewings had "posted" the title of what he called "their spurious and incorrect Edition," at which point Faulkner notified them that he had the original manuscript; they retorted that what he had were only one or two pages improperly copied years earlier. Faulkner then made the incident a public cause. "For the Sake of Peace, and the Custom of Trade," he ostentatiously offered to refer the dispute "to any one, two, or more Booksellers." But the Ewings "haughtily and insolently" refused, the son declaring that he "would not trust his Property to the Decision of any one Man, or any Set of Men whatever." Faulkner then advertised this refusal as proof of their refractoriness. He published warnings of their attempt to "pyrate" the works "from obscure and incorrect Editions printed in England or Scotland," and urged that "no honest, well-meaning Person" would give them house room.52 To repudiate this interloping was a matter of the integrity of nation and craft.
The formalization of this process of self-definition occurred in 1767, again at the instigation of Faulkner. He had just been elected sheriff when he found himself facing yet another internal piracy. This time it was an endeavor to reprint Lord Lyttelton's history of Henry 11, which Lyttelton had assigned to him; the unauthorized version therefore infringed a peer's honor as well as the customs of the trade. Faulkner responded in what was becoming his accustomed way, by convening meetings with the other publishing booksellers to exclude the offenders. But now he went further than before, declaring a full-scale price war on the pirates. For years, he announced, he had pursued printing and publishing "for the Service of his Country." His efforts had promoted knowledge, encouraged manufactures and trade, and ensured that specie that otherwise would have gone abroad was invested within Ireland. Yet still he found "Malignity, Hatred, Envy and Malice" directed against him.The "insidious People of his Profession" had "pyrated" his books. They had devalued his "Copies," all of which he had procured "in the fairest Manner from the different Authors and Proprietors in Great Britain and Ireland." Nor had their ambitions been restricted to cultural flotsam like almanacs and primers. They had pirated the Universal History, "the largest {work} ever undertaken by any Bookseller in Ireland." He and his allies had finally resolved on decisive action. They would drive the pirates out of business.53
It was this antipiracy alliance that began to call itself the Company of Booksellers (later the United Company). It acted rather like a conger, attempting to corner the market in the reprinting and import of London books, beginning