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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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198 PETITION
with it, without granting you any part of the profit that we obtain.
The law, to suppress this scandal of an entire century, did not state in its two
decrees: The work of an author is his own. These decrees might have been futile; but
it [the law] expressed formally: That given the past abuses, the continual usurpations
established in oppressive rights, none can henceforth invade the property of authors
without incurring such a reprimand or such a penalty. So, starting to understand this,
the troupe directors sought, not to deny the soundness of this law, but to elude it if
they could, to escape its justice by all the means of Escobar.*
The first [means] that these directors thought they could use was simply to flout
this law and to continue to perform our plays as if the legislator had never pronounced
against them; for, they said, a lot of time will pass before the restored order will have
armed its repressive force against us; that which we will have taken will be taken and
will remain with us: many of us will no longer exist in the position of directors; and
what means of recourse against an insolvent director? Now during that time at least
the law will be nil for us. They had very well reasoned, not in law, but in abuses; for
since the decrees that forbid all directors from continuing to usurp the property of
authors, their works have been performed with the same audacity in all the towns
________
*) In France the name of the Spanish theologian and casuist Antonio Escobar y
Mendoza (1589-1669), whose writings were sharply criticized by Pascal, became
proverbial for that of a hypocrite.
No Transcription available.
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
Back | Record | Images | No Commentaries
Translation only | Transcription only | Show all | Bundled images as pdf
with it, without granting you any part of the profit that we obtain.
The law, to suppress this scandal of an entire century, did not state in its two
decrees: The work of an author is his own. These decrees might have been futile; but
it [the law] expressed formally: That given the past abuses, the continual usurpations
established in oppressive rights, none can henceforth invade the property of authors
without incurring such a reprimand or such a penalty. So, starting to understand this,
the troupe directors sought, not to deny the soundness of this law, but to elude it if
they could, to escape its justice by all the means of Escobar.*
The first [means] that these directors thought they could use was simply to flout
this law and to continue to perform our plays as if the legislator had never pronounced
against them; for, they said, a lot of time will pass before the restored order will have
armed its repressive force against us; that which we will have taken will be taken and
will remain with us: many of us will no longer exist in the position of directors; and
what means of recourse against an insolvent director? Now during that time at least
the law will be nil for us. They had very well reasoned, not in law, but in abuses; for
since the decrees that forbid all directors from continuing to usurp the property of
authors, their works have been performed with the same audacity in all the towns
________
*) In France the name of the Spanish theologian and casuist Antonio Escobar y
Mendoza (1589-1669), whose writings were sharply criticized by Pascal, became
proverbial for that of a hypocrite.
No Transcription available.