PRIMARY SOURCES

ON COPYRIGHT

(1450-1900)

Foreign Reprints Act, London (1847)

Source: Durham University Library

Citation:
Foreign Reprints Act, London (1847), Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), eds L. Bently & M. Kretschmer, www.copyrighthistory.org

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Record-ID: uk_1847

Permanent link: https://copyrighthistory.org/cam/tools/request/showRecord.php?id=record_uk_1847

Full title:
An Act to amend the Law relating to the Protection in the Colonies of Works entitled to Copyright in the United Kingdom, 22nd July 1847, 10 & 11 Vict., c.95

Full title original language:
N/A

Abstract:
Legislation enabling colonial territories to import unauthorised foreign reprints subject to the payment of an import duty, to be collected for the benefit of British publishers. The commentary explores the background to the Foreign Reprints Act 1847, and in particular, the differences between the British and colonial markets for literary works, and the introduction of 'responsible government' in the colonies. It also considers the movement in the late 1860s and early 1870s, on the part of the British book trade, to have the legislation repealed, as well as the efforts of the Canadian legislature to replace the import scheme with a system of compulsory licensing, set against the backdrop of increasingly fractious Anglo-Canadian copyright relations. The Canadian demands for compulsory licensing scheme were by and large abandoned, and the 1847 Act remained on the statute books until the passing of the Copyright Act 1911.

1 Commentary:
commentary_uk_1847

Bibliography:
  • Ward, J.M., Colonial Self-Government, The British Experience 1759-1856 (London: MacMillan, 1976)

  • Seville, C., The Internationalisation of Copyright Law: Books, Buccaneers and the Black Flag in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)

  • Nowell-Smith, S., International Copyright Law and the Publisher in the reign of Queen Victoria (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968)

  • Daldy, F.R., The Colonial Copyright Acts (London: Longmans & Co., 1889)


Related documents in this database:
1847: Foreign Reprints Bill
1857: Return of Colonies and British Possessions on Importation of Reprints
1872: Correspondence and Papers on Colonial Copyright
1874: Correspondence respecting Colonial Copyright

Author: N/A

Publisher: N/A

Year: 1847

Location: London

Language: English

Source: Durham University Library

Persons referred to:
Victoria

Places referred to:
America
Great Britain

Cases referred to:
N/A

Institutions referred to:
N/A

Legislation:
Copyright Amendment Act, 1842, 5 & 6 Vict., c.45
Customs Act, 1845, 8 & 9 Vict., c.93
Foreign Reprints Act, 1847, 10 & 11 Vict., c.95

Keywords:
Anglo-American
book trade
foreign reprints
importation

Responsible editor: Ronan Deazley


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