PRIMARY SOURCES

ON COPYRIGHT

(1450-1900)

Beier: On the Book Trade and its Privileges, Jena (1690)

Source: Scanned from a reprint edited by Reinhard Wittmann (Munich: Kraus International Publishing, 1981)

Citation:
Beier: On the Book Trade and its Privileges, Jena (1690), Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), eds L. Bently & M. Kretschmer, www.copyrighthistory.org

Back | Record | Images | No Commentaries
Translation only | Transcription only | Show all | Bundled images as pdf

2 translated pages

Chapter 1 Page 1


[...]

      LXXIV. In the latter case, / when a book is
enlarged or abridged, / this may either happen simply
by the use of a larger or smaller format and types - / then
it comes to the same thing as the earlier cases - / or a scholar
may also apply himself to it / and either contract it into a
compendium with tables, / synopses and such like, / or
expand it by the addition of notes and supplements, / or
do both of these things at the same time, / as Hilliger did in his
"Donellus Enucleatus"*. Now, if this is done with the author's
and also the previous publisher's consent and knowledge, and in accordance
with his wishes, / then it is the proper way of going about it / and without
doubt the previous publisher's interests will also have been taken into
account, so that if he so wishes, the publication [of the new edition] will
be entrusted to him before anyone else. However, where this is not observed, / as
was the case with the "Limnaeus enucleatus"**, / then it is quite
reasonable that the author and first publisher should complain about this. The
same would be the case / if a large book were to be reduced to a synopsis in such
a way / that, although the best parts would still remain in the original work /


_________________________

* Oswald Hilliger's 1616 book "Donellus Elucidated" [an abridged version of Donellus's "Commentari juris civilis"], which appeared in many editions.

** Philipp Andreas Oldenburger's 1670 book "Limnaeus Elucidated" [an abridged version of Johannes Limnaeus's 1657 treatise on civil law in the Holy Roman Empire]


Chapter 1 Page 2


and this synopsis just served as a guide [to the main work], / the latter,
in fact, proved to be in greater demand and more copies of it were sold,
since quite a few people may not feel confident enough to read the
larger book and buy it / because they consider it too much for them /
and prefer to get an idea of it through the shorter work - as was
the case with Carpzov, where / the praiseworthy Law Faculty
at Erfurt responded in terminis de Jure on 17 November 1669
- but all this must take place with the consent of the first
publisher, / since otherwise there would be no end
to the bringing out of ever new excerpts, enlarged,
and modified editions.


Translation by: Luis A. Sundkvist (pp.54-55)

    


Copyright History resource developed in partnership with:


Our Partners


Copyright statement

You may copy and distribute the translations and commentaries in this resource, or parts of such translations and commentaries, in any medium, for non-commercial purposes as long as the authorship of the commentaries and translations is acknowledged, and you indicate the source as Bently & Kretschmer (eds), Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900) (www.copyrighthistory.org).

With the exception of commentaries that are available under a CC-BY licence (compliant with UKRI policy) you may not publish individual documents or parts of the database for any commercial purposes, including charging a fee for providing access to these documents via a network. This licence does not affect your statutory rights of fair dealing.

Although the original documents in this database are in the public domain, we are unable to grant you the right to reproduce or duplicate some of these documents in so far as the images or scans are protected by copyright or we have only been able to reproduce them here by giving contractual undertakings. For the status of any particular images, please consult the information relating to copyright in the bibliographic records.


Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900) is co-published by Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, 10 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DZ, UK and CREATe, School of Law, University of Glasgow, 10 The Square, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK