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Fragments on the Freedom of the Press, Paris (1776)
Source: Cambridge University Library : Condorcet, 'Fragments sur la liberté de la presse' (1776), in Oeuvres (Firmin Didot 1847) tome II, p. 253
Citation:
Fragments on the Freedom of the Press, Paris (1776), Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), eds L. Bently & M. Kretschmer, www.copyrighthistory.org
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311
bringing its order into perfection, or the proofs, from broadening
the developments, the results. The author of this useful book will
thus not really have a privilege.
It is thus only for the expressions, for the sentences, that
privileges exist. It is not for the issues, the ideas: it is for
the words, for the name of the author. Hence their objective is
not to preserve for an inventor the price of the useful discoveries
he has made, but to put it up for sale at a higher price with the
agreeable appearances which he has imagined.
I can, as often as it pleases me, arrange to have printed a
solution of the problem of the precession of the equinoxes,
expose a general principle of mechanics, etc. etc. The author of
these useful and great discoveries has no say over me: the glory
remains with him. But if I get it into my head to print an
epithalamium, without the permission of the author, then I will
have committed an offence.
Finally, the privileges in this sphere have, as in every other,
the disadvantages of decreasing the activity, of concentrating it in
a small number of hands, of charging it with a considerable tax, of
rendering the manufactures from this country inferior to foreign
manufactures.
Hence they are neither necessary, nor even useful, and we have
seen that they are unjust.
Conclusion
These are our ideas on a part of legislation which is more important
than one usually thinks.
No Transcription available.
Source: Cambridge University Library : Condorcet, 'Fragments sur la liberté de la presse' (1776), in Oeuvres (Firmin Didot 1847) tome II, p. 253
Citation:
Fragments on the Freedom of the Press, Paris (1776), Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), eds L. Bently & M. Kretschmer, www.copyrighthistory.org
Back | Record | Images | Commentaries: [1]
Translation only | Transcription only | Show all | Bundled images as pdf
311
bringing its order into perfection, or the proofs, from broadening
the developments, the results. The author of this useful book will
thus not really have a privilege.
It is thus only for the expressions, for the sentences, that
privileges exist. It is not for the issues, the ideas: it is for
the words, for the name of the author. Hence their objective is
not to preserve for an inventor the price of the useful discoveries
he has made, but to put it up for sale at a higher price with the
agreeable appearances which he has imagined.
I can, as often as it pleases me, arrange to have printed a
solution of the problem of the precession of the equinoxes,
expose a general principle of mechanics, etc. etc. The author of
these useful and great discoveries has no say over me: the glory
remains with him. But if I get it into my head to print an
epithalamium, without the permission of the author, then I will
have committed an offence.
Finally, the privileges in this sphere have, as in every other,
the disadvantages of decreasing the activity, of concentrating it in
a small number of hands, of charging it with a considerable tax, of
rendering the manufactures from this country inferior to foreign
manufactures.
Hence they are neither necessary, nor even useful, and we have
seen that they are unjust.
These are our ideas on a part of legislation which is more important
than one usually thinks.
No Transcription available.