The law of copyright by William Wordsworth
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"The law of copyright by William Wordsworth" is a short open letter and pamphlet on copyright law written in the early Victorian era. It advocates reform of literary property, supporting a parliamentary effort to extend authors’ rights and arguing that writers hold an enduring property interest in their works. An editor’s note frames the piece as a newspaper letter backing Serjeant Talfourd’s bill and explains its later rediscovery. The main text is
a dignified appeal from Rydal Mount: the poet declines to organize a petition, believing Parliament should recognize the obvious justice of the cause, but publicly declares firm support for longer protection. He criticizes the opposition from printers and publishers, asserts that common law upholds an author’s perpetual property, and rejects comparisons between literature and patentable inventions. Speaking for the whole class of writers—and mindful of heirs—he urges restoration of their rights and closes with confidence that justice will ultimately prevail and gratitude to those advancing the reform. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850 |
|---|---|
| Title | The law of copyright |
| Original Publication | London: Thomas J. Wise, 1916. |
| Credits | Charlene Taylor, Quentin Campbell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | KD: Law in general, Comparative and uniform law, Jurisprudence: United Kingdom and Ireland |
| Subject | Copyright |
| Subject | Talfourd, Thomas Noon, Sir, 1795-1854 |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 76806 |
| ISBN (HTML) | 979-8-238-76806-9 |
| Release Date | Sep 3, 2025 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 497 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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