# Primary Sources on Copyright - Record Viewer
Beaumarchais's petition, Paris (1791)

Source: Bibliothèque Universitaire de Poitiers (SCD) : Oeuvres complètes de Beaumarchais, tome sixième, Paris, Furne, 1826.

Citation:
Beaumarchais's petition, Paris (1791), Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), eds L. Bently & M. Kretschmer, www.copyrighthistory.org

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            Chapter 1 Page 25 of 26 total


TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY                        219

      I have shown, by my sole example, that they have not said a word of truth about
our conduct with them, concerning our claims. I have proved that all the authors
never ceased to make them; and that in my role as their representative I had made
them for all.
      I have proved that, in spite of public acts and all my claims, one had stolen my
work, after having dishonoured it.
      I have effectively proved that our claims must never have had any effect, for a
very despotic minister was unable to make himself obeyed by these provincial
directors; so certain and powerful is the secret influence that they have everywhere at
their disposal!
      I have proved that they had no right to perform in the provinces, and without
paying the authors, the plays that one did not perform in Paris without giving them an
agreed sum, whether they were printed or not.
      I have well proved, by comparison with fabric retailers, how ridiculous this
grievance, founded on the necessity of paying the author for his work, becomes,
especially when this author contents himself with asking, all expenses deducted, for
one-seventh of the proceeds. For that which could happen most advantageously to
these perfidious reasoners, would be to have to pay an author, for his seventh [part],
seventy thousand francs; which would only prove that the troupe obtained from the
work


    

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