American Piracy of British literature refers to the practice of printing and distributing copies of books of British authorship in the United States without the permission of the original author or publisher before international copyright treaties were established between the nations.
Although international copyright protections are common now, and literary piracy is generally recognized as a crime, such broad-reaching protections have not always existed. In the decades following the American Revolution, it became common for works of British literature to be reprinted in the United States without any acknowledgment, authorization, or compensation given to the original author. [1] Because of a lack of agreed upon international law at the time, this literary piracy was entirely legal, and the immense distance between the two nations made the issue difficult to address. It was not until the International Copyright Act of 1891 that English authors had any legal protection over their intellectual property in the United States.[1]
The Statute of Anne, passed in 1710, was the first English law to provide for copyright regulated by the government and courts, rather than by private parties. This act protected the reproduction of British works produced by British Authors, but did not have any jurisdiction outside of the United Kingdom. In 1869, Edward Thornton, British minister to the United States, proposed the first international copyright laws between the United States and the United Kingdom to try and stem the spread of international literary piracy.[2] It wouldn't be until the International Copyright Act of 1891 was passed that there would be any bilateral copyright agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom. This treaty allowed the original copyright protection of British literary works to be applied in America and vice-versa. It took over 100 years after these laws were proposed for the United States to fully cooperate with them.
During the 18th century, literary pirates would bring British novels back to America, reprint them (with the original author's name in order to escape incrimination, but still using another author's work for their own personal gain), and yet never give the original author any compensation for their work. This system fell into place largely because the nation did not have any real individual literary identity at that point in time.[3] During that period, the United States was still in the early stages of its independent development as a nation and most of what the new American public was comfortable with involved British culture and ideas. These pirated novels had already established a reputation and success in England and were therefore not a risk to publishers in the States, who already knew that there would likely be a success in the New World. In some cases, these pirated novels were more accessible in America than they were to the British where they were originally printed. Although novels were a large portion of the pirated works from England, magazines, and newspapers were included in the stolen works as well.
One primary example can be seen in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, a magazine that was aimed at women and attempted to create a patriotic attitude in the developing nation. Harper's ideas and strategies involved exposing these women to the British form of "elevated" culture in an effort to increase the standard and quality of the new American literature, which would result from the British inspiration they provided in their magazine. It was formerly believed that because of America's lack of a social class system, there would be no real need for a strong literary tradition. Harper's tried to expose the British tradition in order to facilitate growth for the American tradition. They sold for a low cost because there was no compensation being paid to the original authors back in England for the sole purpose of exposing every educated person in the new American public to "the unbounded treasures of the periodical literature of the present day".
The important thing was not the actual content of the magazines or their national origin but more about how much circulation and exposure these pieces received. This feeling of inspiration eventually backfired when the American authors were intimidated by the intense connection and dependence on British authors and did not produce many. Eventually, the resentment for the lack of Americanism led to a change in Harper's to include more national, not international, authors. This change never really paid off and the magazine did not see the same amount of success and profit that it received from the British pirated material.