Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900)
Identifier: d_1837b
Commentary on the Resolution on reciprocal copyright protection within the German Confederation, Berlin (1837)
Friedemann Kawohl
Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management, Bournemouth University, UK
Please cite as:
Kawohl, F. (2008) ‘Commentary on German federal copyright directives (1837-1869)', in Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), eds L. Bently & M. Kretschmer, www.copyrighthistory.org
1. Full title
2. Abstract
3. The German Federal Act of 1815
4. The Frankfurt draft of 1819
5. Austria and the delay of further steps towards a common copyright standard
6. Combating reprinting as a national project
7. Alternative forms of protection during the 1820s: Publishers' societies, privileges, and bilateral treaties
8. The breakthrough: the German Customs Union of 1834 and the copyright directives of 1832, 1834 and 1837
9. Federal resolutions on copyright within the Confederation between 1837 and 1869
10. References
1. Full title
Resolution agreed on by the Assembly of the German Confederation regarding common standards for the protection of literary and artistic property against reprinting and unauthorized reproduction, as published in the Prussian Statute Book.
2. Abstract
The directive of 1837 is the most important of a number of federal resolutions that helped to create a common market and to harmonise copyright laws within the states of the German Confederation. The resolution, which consisted of six articles, provided a minimum protection of 10 years after publication, that could be prolonged by up to 20 years for specific works if the government of a member state of the Confederation so requested. Every work published in any of the member states within the last twenty years was granted full protection for ten years. After several such extensions to the copyright term, the key date of 1837 was indirectly the cause of the German publishing industry boom in 1867, when the copyright for many editions of works by popular authors eventually expired. The commentary gives an overview on the development of copyright agreements within the German Confederation between 1818 and 1869.
3. The German Federal Act of 1815
On 8 June 1815, the German Federal Act was signed in Vienna. The document served as a constitution for the German Confederation until the latter was replaced by the North German Confederation, the new federal state founded in 1866/67 under the guidance of Prussia as an immediate precursor of the German Reich. In Article 18 of the Federal Act of 1815, the member states guaranteed national treatment for their subjects with respect to the acquisition of real property (Art. 18a); the freedom of movement and the freedom to serve in the army of any of the member states (Art. 18b); the abandonment of any extra taxes in the case of removals and capital transfer (Art. 18c). These binding declarations were followed by a non-binding pure declaration of intent in Art. 18d:
"Art. 18: The confederate princes and free cities agree to guarantee the following rights to the subjects of German Federal States: [...] d) During its first meeting the Federal Assembly will work at the drawing up of uniform provisions on the freedom of the press and the protection of the rights of authors and publishers against reprinting." [1]
The agreement of Art.18d was the result of lobbying by publishers from several German states, who, however, had to contend with the opposition of the major reprinting publishers, as documented in d_1815a.[2] Art. 18d did in principle acknowledge the Confederation's competence within the field of copyright but led to no immediate result.
4. The Frankfurt draft of 1819
After the Federal Assembly had been constituted in Frankfurt on 5 November 1816, in a meeting which took place on 26 March 1817, the representative of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, Günther Heinrich Freiherr vom Berg (1765-1843) was appointed to report on the different standards of copyright protection within the various member states. Berg reported to the Diet on 22 June 1818, on copyright matters, and on 12 October 1818 on the freedom of the press, insisting that these two questions had to be treated independently. In spite of Freiherr vom Berg's advice, the juxtaposition of copyright and freedom of the press in Art. 18d of the Federal Act turned out to be an obstacle on the way to common standards. A commission was established to work out a draft that was eventually was presented on 11 February 1819.
Article 2 of the draft suggested a term of protection for the author's lifetime plus 15 years p.m.a., when authors themselves had published their works and a term of lifetime plus 10 years p.m.a. when they had delegated the publication to a professional publisher.[3] Article 16 restricted the transfer of the copyright from author to publisher to one edition if nothing had been specified in the contract, a provision that was similarly included in the Prussian Statute Book of 1794 (d_1794). Article 20 provided that copyright could be suspended for books that were too expensive. After a memorandum was received from a number of Leipzig publishers protesting against this, any form of price regulation was refused and a minimum protection of 30 years p.m.a. was put forward. The discussion of the draft before the Assembly demonstrated how incompatible the interests of many of the member states were. The Württemberg Minister of Cultural Affairs and representative of his government at the Frankfurt Diet, Karl August von Wangenheim (1773-1850) suggested a term of 6 years after publication - the same term was provided by Württemberg privileges - hoping thus to protect the thriving local reprinting industry and to limit the outflow of Württemberg currency to the major book trade centres of Saxony and Prussia. Hesse-Darmstadt suggested a term of 20 years, and six minor states 30 years after publication; Prussia suggested 15 years, and the Free Cities 20 years p.m.a., while Saxony insisted on intellectual property being treated on an equal footing with all other forms of property, thus refusing any termination of the publishers' exclusive right to copy. Ludwig Friedrich Griesinger (1767-1845), a Stuttgart solicitor, delivered a speech before the Württemberg parliament defending the freedom of reprinting with regard to the 1819 draft.[4] Griesinger's view was refuted by the Jena law Professor Karl Ernst Schmid (1774-1852),[5] while Wangenheim's suggestion to the Federal Diet, referred to earlier, provoked a reply from the Leipzig professor of philosophy Traugott Manfred Krug (1770-1842).[6]
5. Austria and the delay of further steps towards a common copyright standard
Although the 1819 draft was discussed at the Federal Diet and in public, it was not pursued further. The main reason for this was the opposition of Austria. Unlike most other member states, the Austrian deputy had not expressed any opinion on Berg's speeches and the bill of 1819. In contrast to Berg, the Austrian chancellor Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich (1773-1859) was known to prefer linking copyright protection to a restrictive censorship system. Metternich was the driving force behind the Carlsbad Decrees, that were passed by the Frankfurt Diet on 20 September 1819, requiring member states to install strict censorship regimes, to make sure that products of the printing press were signed with the names of authors and publishers, and to guarantee that the editors of newspapers whose articles awoke the displeasure of the Diet would be banned from exercising their profession in every single member state. And it was also Metternich who presented a memorandum to the Diet, which, as he himself put it, "combined suitable measures against reprinting with a very well thought-through plan for the legal regulation of the German book trade in general, as well as offering to the only system of press supervision that is compatible with public order and peace a new, unconstrained guarantee which is entirely appropriate for the benefit of authors and booksellers."[7] The text of the memorandum was most likely drafted by Adam Heinrich Müller (1779-1829), the Austrian ambassador in Leipzig. With crude arguments Müller tried to derive compelling reasons for linking copyright and censorship together:
"It is, however, true that there cannot be an absolute freedom of the press, since there is a literary private property which, like every other kind of private property, cannot subsist without the protection of civil law. But because preventive restrictions of the press are necessary, the authority which enforces these restrictions is in its turn obliged to protect against reprinting the private property that comes into being under its cognizance."[8]
The Austrian proposal of a super information authority that would bestow copyrights for works which passed an internal censorship body for the whole Confederation was, however, not taken up further by the other member states. Austria, where state censorship was exercised the most strictly and local reprinting was fostered by the government, was apparently not regarded as a model for emulation by many other states, in which commercial affairs and press regulation were exercised more liberally. But on the other hand Austria formally held the presidency of the Confederation and was recognized by many states as the dominating power, by virtue of tradition, of the Habsburg Empire's sheer size, and also thanks to Prince Metternich's ingenious diplomatic skills. This was not to change before the early 1830s, when Prussia took over as the driving force for the economic unification of the member states.
6. Combating reprinting as a national project
The copyright section of the Federal Act of 1815 had raised high expectations among publishers and authors that there would soon be common standards across the territory of the Confederation. The big publishing houses in Saxony and Prussia regarded the absence of minimum standards as an obstacle to the book trade that in the 1820s was still recovering from the post-war depression. And in the context of the wave of national enthusiasm stirred up by the Allies' defeat of the French occupying forces in 1813-1815 in which German volunteer corps played a significant part alongside the regular armies, the protection of ‘national' authors was hailed as a continuation of the great patriotic project. As the Halle-based bookseller and writer, Christian August Gottlieb Eberhard (1769-1845) argued,[9] German authors, whose writings had infused the nation with fervour and courage during the Wars of Liberation (Befreiungskriege), deserved to be protected against reprinters by the Fatherland.
Likewise, the Jena professor of history Heinrich Luden (1780-1845)[10] associated protection against reprinting with the national project. Even though Luden admitted "that in other countries a writer could, so to speak, make a greater fortune with his works, that is gain more money through them, than is possible in Germany",[11] her citizens had good reason to take pride in participating in the glorious amalgamation of German intellect and the German book trade, as Luden implicitly suggested:
"This regularity in circulation, this intermeshing of the local business in each region with that of its neighbours, this all-embracingness in the distribution of works, can be found nowhere else. Nowhere else is there a booksellers' fair like that of Leipzig; nowhere else is there such a centre of literature as in this city; nowhere else are there such complete catalogues of all books which have ever been printed; nowhere else are booksellers linked by such collegial ties, which allow them to deliver without delay everything that their clients ask for. In other countries each bookseller has to first negotiate with his publisher [...] In contrast, according to the idea which seems to underlie the Leipzig book trade, Leipzig is intended to serve as the great repository of everything that has been printed; and each individual bookseller is commissioned by the great owner of this repository - by the spirit of German culture (Bildung) - to communicate all works as far as is possible to all fellow countrymen."[12]
Reprinting in Luden's view was the only deficiency that
"is not only infinitely ruinous for our literature, but is also an unutterable disgrace for the whole German people and could cause foreigners to have doubts about that virtue of German Honesty which we are so fond of invoking."[13]
Luden's arguments against reprinting lead to two postulates:
"First postulate: No stirring of the intellect is to be suppressed; rather, what is produced by the mind of any person is to be communicated to his whole people; that is, it is to penetrate all fellow countrymen who are capable of appreciating it; No one who wishes to spur on or strengthen his own mind by this is to be excluded from it, and thus, by free reciprocal action of people's minds, a characteristic national culture will be created.
Second postulate: Everyone whose mind is astir, who lives and works for his people, is to receive from his people, in proportion to this intellectual activity, to this life and work of his, whatever he needs, in order to develop freely and joyfully as an individual amongst his people, in order to educate himself and enjoy life to the full, so that he may continue to live and work for the benefit of his people."[14]
Luden's views on copyright may have been somewhat obfuscated by patriotism, but his postulates do emphasize a characteristic feature of early nineteenth-century German copyright ideology: copyright here was regarded as a means to foster free communication. Through several federal resolutions the member states of the German Confederation would implement censorship regulations that were quite strict, if compared to France and other European states at the time. Liberal authors and publishers thus felt that any form of strong private property rights in their works might help to weaken the government's claim to absolute control over the flow of information. On the other hand, it was quite possibly this very potential of private legal claims to a work that led Metternich in the first place to insist on the amalgamation of copyright and censorship legislation.
7. Alternatives forms of protection during the 1820s: Publishers' societies, privileges, and bilateral treaties
When skimming through the Wochenblatt für Buchhändler, the special interest journal of the German book trade during the 1820s before the Börsenblatt was founded in 1835, one can see that several authors were demanding for booksellers and publishers' associations to collectively combat reprinting, which was seen as one of the main impediments to the flourishing of the trade. In fact there were a number of such associations that cooperated more or less formally with one another. In 1828, seven Berlin publishers had jointly signed a call for boycotting a Bamberg-based colleague who was allegedly offering pirate editions for sale. The measure was apparently successful, for nine days later the same group of publishers from Berlin announced that their colleague had declared that he would refrain from selling reprints in future, and so their boycott was revoked.[15]
An important and formally constituted society sprang off the music publishers' agreement to ban reprinting that was concluded in Leipzig in 1829 and 1830 (d_1830). The Börsenverein, the still existing organization of German publishers and booksellers, was founded in 1825, and from 1831 onwards new members were required to refrain from reprinting and selling pirate editions.[16]
The publishers' and booksellers' associations exerted pressure on members and non-members alike to abstain from reprinting, and they also made lobbying efforts both at the level of the German Confederation and within the individual member states.
The Frankfurt Diet's failure to make much progress in terms of unified policy, however, did encourage authors and publishers to resort to the traditional form of protection - the printing privilege - which sovereigns bestowed on specific works and authors. Johann Strauss's application for a Prussian privilege in 1834 was of little avail (see the commentary for d_1835). Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, however, was quite successful, when, in 1824, he made the first ever request by an author to the Confederation for having a planned edition of his works (the Ausgabe letzter Hand, the last edition of his works that he supervised in his lifetime) privileged free of charge in all the member states. For constitutional reasons a general privilege issued by the Confederation was not sufficient. Goethe's general application to the Confederation was backed by Prussia and Austria and resulted in 39 privileges to his favour, bestowed by the member states in the course of 1825 and 1826.[17] The member states' different views on the question of reprinting, however, was apparent in the different terms of the privileges, ranging from "for ever" (in Schwarzburg-Sondershausen), over 50 years, 20 years (in Bavaria, where Goethe was asked to pay 49 guilders), to just 12 years in Württemberg.[18]
Elmar Wadle has argued that Prussian politicians regarded the reactions to Goethe's application to the Confederation as "a test with which Prussia wanted to ascertain where the other confederate states stood in the question of reprinting."[19] Since the results were unambiguous, with Württemberg and Bavaria, in particular, making it clear that they wanted to stick to their privilege systems, Prussia began to prepare for bilateral treaties with a number of member states, that were eventually signed in 1827 (see d_1827).
8. The breakthrough: the German Customs Union of 1834 and the copyright directives of 1832, 1834 and 1837
From now on Prussia would be the driving force in the Confederation. In August 1829, Prussian delegates reported to the Frankfurt Diet on the bilateral treaties and moved for a general acceptance of national treatment within the whole Confederation. Three years later, the Confederation agreed on the rule that
"in the application of legal provisions and measures against reprinting, any distinction between a confederate state's own subjects and those of the other states united under the German Confederation will in future cease to be observed across the whole Federal territory, so that the editors, publishers, and authors of one member state can enjoy in every other member state the legal protection against reprinting which is in place there."[20]
The situation, however, remained unsatisfying. Since the legal systems were so different, publishers still had to take into account different formalities and privilege procedures in every member state for every single publication.
At the Vienna Conference of 1834 the strict censorship rules provided in the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819 were tightened further, as part of a set of measures designed to guarantee public safety. By this time Austria had renounced its earlier demand to bundle together copyright and censorship legislation, and so the ministers of the confederate states agreed, without preliminary consultations, on the following specific sections, which were a significant step forward on the way towards harmonisation of copyright law across the German lands:
"1) The State Governments assembled here have agreed that reprinting is to be forbidden throughout the whole territory of the Confederation, and that literary property is to be established and protected according to uniform principles;2) The State Governments are requested to notify, within two months, the Federal Diet of everything that they have already decreed or intend to decree for the prohibition of reprinting enunciated by the present Resolution."[21]
A commission made up of delegates from all the bigger member states was installed to work out the Federal Resolution, that was to come into force in 1837. Even though Prussia did not succeed in pushing through her proposal of a 30 years p.m.a. term (the term that was provided in the Prussian Copyright Act of 1837) the minimum of 10 years post-publication was a huge success towards a uniform copyright system within the German states.
The federal resolutions on copyright of the 1830s were part of the turn-around in the balance of power within the Confederation. While Austria had dominated the Confederation in the first decade after the Congress of Vienna, Prussia started taking over the diplomatic initiative in the 1830s. The huge success of the German Customs Union (Zollverein) in 1834 consolidated Prussian leadership in economic affairs within the Confederation. Austria, however, stayed outside the Zollverein, since Metternich was not able to bring over other Austrian politicians to free trade policy. The Customs Union of 1834 is generally regarded as having substantially promoted industrialization and international trade. The boom of the German book trade in the late 1830s and early 1840s was probably facilitated to a greater degree by the Customs Union than by the copyright directive of 1837.
In some respects there is a certain similarity between the resolutions (Bundesbeschlüsse) passed by the Federal Assembly and the directives of the European Union nowadays, these being the main means of implementing European law within the EU. (That is why in the heading of this section and further down we have referred to the federal resolutions on copyright of 1832, 1834, and 1837 as directives). Now, whereas EU directives require member states to achieve a certain result, while leaving them discretion as to how the latter is to be achieved, most Bundesbeschlüsse were literally published within the relevant codes of law and thus incorporated into the legislation of the member states. Like EU directives, though, the Bundesbeschlüsse tended to set a minimum standard and left a leeway for member states to grant stronger rights for their subjects than required by the directive. Some states did promptly publish and thus directly implement the Bundesbeschlüsse, while others preferred instead to implement the minimum standards within new copyright acts. For example, Württemberg published the 1832 directive on 4 July 1833, but directly implemented the 1837 directive in the Copyright Act of 19 October 1838 and the later directive of 1845 in the Copyright Act of 24 August 1845.
9. Federal resolutions on copyright within the Confederation between 1837 and 1869
From 1837 it took another 33 years until the first copyright act for the German Reich was issued in 1870. The system of minimum standards of protection as first implemented in 1832, 1834 and 1837, was further developed in several directives. Within this period, however, a number of member states promulgated their own Copyright Acts: Württemberg in 1838 and 1845, as mentioned above; Austria in 1846 (d_1846b); Bavaria in 1840 and 1865; and Saxony in 1844 (d_1844).
The performance rights directive of 1841 (Bundesbeschluß vom 22. April 1841)
Whereas in 1837 the agreed minimum protection had been restricted to cover just printed publications, a minimum protection of performance rights for ten years after the first publication was agreed by the Federal Diet on 22 April 1841. The exclusive performance right of the author and his heirs was, however, restricted to works that had not been published in print.
The protection term extension directive of 1845 (Bundesbeschluss vom 19. Juni 1845)
On 19 June 1845, the minimum term of protection against reprinting was substantially extended from 10 years after publication to the lifetime of the author plus 30 years p.m.a.. Since the directive of 1837 had included works published between 1817 and 1837 in the minimum term of 10 years, many of those works would have fallen to the public domain in 1847. Thus, the 1845 directive sought to immediately favour publishers and the heirs of authors from that period.
The protection term extension directive of 1856 for authors who had died before 1837 (Bundesbeschluß vom 6. November 1856)
On 6 November 1856, the Confederation agreed on a general extension up to the 9 November 1867 for works by authors who had died before the directive of 9 November 1837 came into force. Whereas in 1837 only those works which had been published between 1817 and 1837 were granted protection for 10 years, the 1856 extension covered all authors equally, regardless of whether they had died between 1817 and 1837 or even before 1817. Thus the heirs and publishers of authors such as Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) who were still very popular at the time could generate a substantial income until 1867. For example, the royalties that Schiller's publisher Cotta in Stuttgart was able to pay to Schiller's heirs between 1805 and 1867 amounted to 265,696 guilders for Schiller's works plus 23,841 guilders for supplementary volumes (of, say, the correspondence between Schiller and Goethe), that is about twelve times the total royalties (approx. 24,100 guilders) which Schiller received during his lifetime.[22] The year 1867 went down into the annals of the German book trade as the so-called Klassikerjahr - a turning-point after which many series of editions of classical authors could be launched without fearing prosecution for the infringement of copyright. The most famous of these editions was Reclam's Universalbibliothek, which started off with Goethe's Faust as its first issue on 10 November 1867.
Performance rights extension directive of 1857 (Bundesbeschluß vom 12. März 1857)
According to the 1841 directive the performance right to a dramatic or musical work was an exclusive right of the author or his heirs for ten years after the first performance. Composers and playwrights, however, did forfeit that right when they decided to publish the work in print. According to the directive of 12 March 1857, the performance right could be retained for the author's lifetime plus 10 years p.m.a., if the author explicitly reserved that right and that reservation was printed on each copy.
Federal resolution on the preparation of a common copyright legislation in 1862 (Bundesbeschluß vom 16. Oktober 1862)
On 16 October 1862, it was agreed to install a commission to work out a common copyright legislation within the Confederation. The 1862 agreement led to the Frankfurt draft, that was adapted in the Bavarian Copyright Act of 1865 (d_1865) and served as a basis for the Copyright Act of 1870 (d_1870)
10. References
Eberhard, C. A. G., Die deutschen Schriftsteller: was sie thaten was sie für Unrecht leiden, und was ihnen für ein Lohn gebührt (Halle: Renger, 1814)
Füssel, S., Schiller und seine Verleger (Frankfurt: Insel, 2005)
Gieseke, L., Vom Privileg zum Urheberrecht: Die Entwicklung des Urheberrechts in Deutschland bis 1845 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1995)
Goldfriedrich, J., Geschichte des Deutschen Buchhandels (Leipzig: Verlag des Börsenvereins, 1913)
Griesinger, L. F., Der Büchernachdruck, aus dem Gesichtspunkte des Rechts, der Moral u. Politik (Stuttgart: Macklot, 1822).
Available online at:http://dlib-pr.mpier.mpg.de/m/kleioc/0010/exec/bigpage/"153054_00000001"
Kawohl, F., Urheberrecht der Musik in Preußen (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 2001)
Krug, W. T., Schriftstellerei, Buchhandel und Nachdruck rechtlich, sittlich und klüglich betrachtet: Eine wissenschaftliche Prüfung des Wangenheim'schen Vortrags darüber beim Bundestage (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1823).
Available online at:http://dlib-pr.mpier.mpg.de/m/kleioc/0010/exec/bigpage/"162618_00000001"
Luden, H., "Vom freien Geistes=Verkehr. Buchhandel und Nachdruck", Nemesis; Zeitschrift für Politik und Geschichte 2 (1815): 328-82.
Available online at:http://books.google.com/books?vid=HARVARD32044098615446&printsec=titlepage#PRA1-PA328,M1
Schmid, C. E., Der Büchernachdruck aus dem Gesichtspunkte des Rechts, der Moral und Politik: Gegen Dr. Ludwig Friedrich Griesinger (Jena: Frommann, 1823)
Available online at:http://dlib-pr.mpier.mpg.de/m/kleioc/0010/exec/bigpage/"198161_00000001"
Wadle, E., Geistiges Eigentum I (Weinheim: VCH, 1996)
___., Geistiges Eigentum II (Munich: Beck, 2003)
Wochenblatt für Buchhändler, Buchdrucker, Antiquare, Musik- und Disputationshändler (Marburg: Krieger) IX (1929)
[1] "Art. 18. Die verbündeten Fürsten und freyen Städte kommen überein, den Unterthanen der deutschen Bundesstaaten folgende Rechte zuzusichern: [...] d) Die Bundesversammlung wird sich bei ihrer ersten Zusammenkunft mit Abfassung gleichförmiger Verfügungen über die Pressfreiheit und die Sicherstellung der Rechte der Schriftsteller und Verleger gegen den Nachdruck beschäftigen." Here quoted from Oscar Waechter, Das Verlagsrecht (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1857) 20, available online as document d_1857.
[2] See Ludwig Gieseke, Vom Privileg zum Urheberrecht: Die Entwicklung des Urheberrechts in Deutschland bis 1845 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1995) 203-10.
[3] This overview on the discussion of the 1819 draft is mainly based on Gieseke (1995). 208-10.
[4] The print version of the speech was published as Ludwig Friedrich Griesinger, Der Büchernachdruck, aus dem Gesichtspunkte des Rechts, der Moral u. Politik (Stuttgart: Macklot, 1822). Available online at:
http://dlib-pr.mpier.mpg.de/m/kleioc/0010/exec/bigpage/"153054_00000001"
[5] Carl Ernst Schmid, Der Büchernachdruck aus dem Gesichtspunkte des Rechts, der Moral und Politik: Gegen Dr. Ludwig Friedrich Griesinger (Jena: Frommann, 1823). Available online at:
http://dlib-pr.mpier.mpg.de/m/kleioc/0010/exec/bigpage/"198161_00000001"
[6] Wilhelm Traugott Krug, Schriftstellerei, Buchhandel und Nachdruck rechtlich, sittlich und klüglich betrachtet: Eine wissenschaftliche Prüfung des Wangenheim'schen Vortrags darüber beim Bundestage (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1823). Available online at:
http://dlib-pr.mpier.mpg.de/m/kleioc/0010/exec/bigpage/"162618_00000001"
[7] "zweckmäßige Maßregeln gegen den Nachdruck, mit einem sehr durchdachten Plane zur gesetzlichen Organisation des deutschen Buchhandels überhaupt verbindet und zugleich dem einzigen mit Ruhe und Ordnung vereinbaren System der Aufsicht über die Presse, eine neue, ungezwungene, dem Vortheil der Schriftsteller und Buchhändler durchaus angemessenen Garantie darbietet." Quoted from the Prussian files in Elmar Wadle, Geistiges Eigentum II (Munich: Beck, 2003) 226.
[8] "Allerdings ist es wahr, daß es eine absolut freie Presse nicht geben kann, weil es ein literarisches Privat=Eigenthum gibt, welches, wie jedes andere Privat=Eigenthum, ohne den Schutz des bürgerlichen Gesetzes nicht bestehen kann. Weil aber Präventivbeschränkungen der Presse notwendig sind, so ist auch andererseits die beschränkende Behörde zum Schutz des unter ihrer Recognition entstehenden Privat=Eigenthums gegen den Nachdruck verpflichtet", quoted in Gieseke (1995), 226.
[9] Christian August Gottlieb Eberhard, Die deutschen Schriftsteller: was sie thaten was sie für Unrecht leiden, und was ihnen für ein Lohn gebührt (Halle: Renger, 1814) On Eberhard see also Gieseke (1995), 205.
[10] Heinrich Luden, "Vom freien Geistes=Verkehr. Buchhandel und Nachdruck", Nemesis; Zeitschrift für Politik und Geschichte (Weimar 1815), 2: 328-82. Available online at:
http://books.google.com/books?vid=HARVARD32044098615446&printsec=titlepage#PRA1-PA328,M1
[11] "daß ein Schriftsteller in einem andern Land mit seinen Werken, wie man das zu nennen pflegt, ein größeres Glück macht, d.h. daß er mehr Geld mit ihnen gewinnt, als in Teutschland möglich ist." Ibid., 334.
[12] "Diese Regelmäßigkeit im Verkehr, dies Ineinandergreifen des Geschäfts, dieses Allumfassende in Verbreitung der Schriften, findet nirgends Statt. Nirgends ist eine Buchhändler-Messe; nirgends ist ein solcher Mittelpunkt für die Literatur, wie Leipzig, nirgends sind so vollständige Verzeichnisse von allen Büchern, die je gedruckt sind, nirgends stehen die Buchhändler in einer solchen Verbindung, die ihnen möglich macht, alles, was verlangt wird, ohne Verzug zu liefern. In anderen Ländern handelt jeder Buchhändler mit seinem Verleger [...] Nach der Idee hingegen, die dem Leipziger Buchhandel zu Grunde zu liegen scheint, soll Leipzig die große Niederlage alles Gedruckten seyn; jeder einzelne Buchhändler von dem großen Eigentümer jener Niederlage - von dem Geiste deutschen Bildung - beauftragt, alle Werke allen Volksgenossen so gemein als möglich zu machen". Ibd. 334.
[13] "nicht nur unendlich verderblich für unsere Literatur, sondern auch eine namenlose Schmach für das ganze Teutsche Volk ist, und die Teutsche Rechtlichkeit, auf welche wir uns doch so gern berufen, bei den Ausländern verdächtig machen könnte". Ibid., 335.
[14] "Erste Forderung. Keine Regung des Geistes soll unterdrückt werden; was aber der Geist irgend eines Menschen erzeugt, das soll seinem ganzen Volke gemein seyn; d. h. es soll alle Volksgenossen durchdringen, die für dasselbe empfänglich sind; Keiner soll davon ausgeschlossen seyn, der seinen Geist dadurch reizen oder stärken möchte, und so soll durch freie Wechselwirkung der Geister, eine eigenthümliche Volksbildung erzeugt werden.
Zweite Forderung. Jeder dessen Geist sich regt, der für sein Volk lebt und wirkt, soll von seinem Volke nach dem Maaße dieses Geistes, dieses Lebens und dieser Wirkung dasjenige erhalten, was er bedarf, um sich als Einzelner in seinem Volke frei und fröhlich zu entwickeln, zu bilden, auszuleben, damit er fortfahren möge zu leben und zu wirken auf sein Volk und für sein Volk." Ibid., 349.
[15] Wochenblatt für Buchhändler IX (1829): 225. On publishers' associations against reprinting see also the discussion in Friedemann Kawohl, Urheberrecht der Musik in Preußen (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 2001), 153-92.
[16] Johann Goldfriedrich, Geschichte des Deutschen Buchhandels (Leipzig: Verlag des Börsenvereins, 1913), 428.
[17] In 1827, Ernst von Schiller (1796-1841) presented 39 privileges for works of his father to his publishers Cotta. See Stephan Füssel, Schiller und seine Verleger (Frankfurt: Insel, 2005), 311.
[18] See Gieseke (1995), 229; Wadle, Geistiges Eigentum I (Weinheim: VCH, 1996), 169ff.
[19] "ein Test, mit dessen Hilfe Preußen die Haltung der übrigen Bundesstaaten in der Nachdruckfrage erproben wollte." Wadle (2001), 130.
[20] "daß bei der Anwendung der gesetzlichen Vorschriften und Maaßregeln wider den Nachdruck, in Zukunft der Unterschied zwischen den eigenen Unterthanen eines Bundesstaates und jenen der übrigen im Deutschen Bunde vereinten Staaten gegenseitig und im ganzen Umfange des Bundes in der Art aufgehoben werden soll, daß die Herausgeber, Verleger und Schriftsteller eines Bundesstaates sich in jedem anderen Bundesstaate des dort gesetzlich bestehenden Schutzes gegen den Nachdruck zu erfreuen haben werden." Protokolle der Bundesversamlung 1832 § 361 p. 1176f, here quoted from Gieseke (1995), 231.
[21] "1) Die hohen und höchsten Regierungen vereinbaren sich dahin, daß der Nachdruck im Umfange des ganzen Bundesgebiets zu verbieten und schriftstellerisches Eigenthum nach gleichförmigen Grundsätzen festzustellen und zu schützen sey.
2) Die höchsten und hohen Regierungen werden aufgefordert, der Bundesversammlung binnen zwei Monaten anzuzeigen, was sie zur Ausführung des durch vorstehenden Beschluß ausgesprochenen Verbots des Nachdruks bereits verfügt haben oder noch zu verfügen beabsichtigen." Protokolle der Bundesversammlung 1835 § 140 p. 270f, here quoted from Gieseke (1995), 232.
[22] Füssel (2005), 311.