444 Letters of Dr. Johnson.
purchase it by resigning some part of his natural right 1 , the authour must recede from so much of his claim as shall be deemed injurious or inconvenient to Society.
It is inconvenient to Society that an useful book should become perpetual and exclusive property.
The Judgement of the Lords was therefore legally and politi cally right.
But the authours enjoyment of his natural right might without any inconvenience be protracted beyond the term settled by the Statute. And it is, I think, to be desired
1. That an Authour should retain during his life the sole right of printing and selling his work.
This is agreeable to moral right, and not inconvenient to the publick, for who will be so diligent as the authour to improve the book, and who can know so well how to improve it ?
2. That the authour be allowed, as by the present act, to alienate his right only for fourteen years.
A shorter time would not procure a sufficient price, and a longer would cut off all hope of future profit, and consequently all solicitude for correction or addition.
3. That when after fourteen years the copy shall revert to the authour, he be allowed to alienate it again only for seven years at a time.
After fourteen years the value of the work will be known, and it will be no longer bought at hazard. Seven years of possession will therefore have an assignable price. It is proper that the authour be always incited to polish and improve his work, by that prospect of accruing interest which those shorter periods of alienation will afford.
4. That after the authours death his work should continue an exclusive property capable of bequest and inheritance, and of conveyance by gift or sale for thirty years.
By these regulations a book may continue the property of
1 * A man (said Johnson) is bound society, gives up a part of his natural to submit to the inconveniences of liberty, as the price of so valuable society as he enjoys the good.' Life, a purchase.' Blackstone's Commen- v. 87. taries, ed. 1775, i. 125.
' Every man, when he enters into
the
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