Piracy_ The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates - Adrian Johns [142]
Brydges advanced a bill to this effect. Not surprisingly, it proved intensely controversial. Christian remarked that if it passed "the whole civilized world will sustain an irreparable loss, and science will for ever droop and mourn." Cambridge University weighed in to support him. The university even revived and endorsed Richard Atkyns's old story of Corsellis, the purported predecessor to Caxton, in order to bolster its case. Christian added that the universities' right to collect copies of all published books had been granted in 1710 as compensation for the loss of an earlier right to reprint all books: between Corsellis and copyright, Oxford and Cambridge had been empowered by royal patent to act as universal pirates. Brydges was now accused of trying to "invade the rights and property" of the ancient universities and to wreak "the greatest possible destruction to the diffusion and extension of learning."65 Glasgow University and the Bodleian likewise issued petitions, noting that Brydges's arguments had been "verywidely circulated."The contest had now raised, they noted, "the great question of LITERARY PROPERTY."66 Amid angry scenes in Parliament, Brydges told MPs that the concept of copyright itself was at issue. It had been invented to address "piracies," but that original aim had been abandoned in 1814. As a result, Humboldt's science had been "crushed," and antiquarian reprints threatened with extinction. The fundamental question was now simply this: "Had authors and publishers-or had they not, a title to this property?"67 If they had, then contemporary copyright had to go.
It almost worked. Brydges's bill failed by just one vote.68 That was enough to initiate a major parliamentary committee investigation into the whole issue-the first of what became a sequence of such panels throughout the nineteenth century. The committee heard witnesses on all sides, amassing a tranche of evidence concerning the little-known customs of the publishing trade. In this dossier it left behind what amounted to an evidential time bomb under the foundations of publishing. And in the meantime it was itself convinced. It reported that the eleven-copy requirement was indeed excessive. It recommended that only the British Museum retain its right; the other libraries should be given allowances in lieu of their claims. Failing this, it proposed several intermediate remedies, including compelling the libraries to pay a share of the costs. But Parliament moved slowly, and in 1818 was dissolved before anything was done.
The dissolution destroyed Brydges's chances. His resources had run out. He skirted bankruptcy in his reelection campaign, and when he lost he immediately fled the country to escape his creditors. Ayear later, when the new Parliament convened, attempts were made to revive the cause, but they got nowhere without him. For another generation the publishers would continue to complain about the deposit. Eventually, in 1836, a new set of debates would arise, culminating in a law depriving six of the eleven libraries of their right. Brydges's own campaign might have failed, then, but the motives driving it had not gone away.
SMALL SCIENCE
In many respects Brydges's observations of his surrounding culture were massively questionable. If genius was really doomed not to be recognized by a mass audience, then why did piracies of Byron's work attract such huge readerships in the late 181os? Why did Scott-with