 |  | ||||||
| |
|
||||||
    Core documents by: Date Place Core documents for: Italy Germany France Britain United States All documents for: Italy Germany France Britain United States Original language: English French German Italian Latin Browse documents by: Person ... by name ... by occupation ... by life dates Place Institution Legislation Case law Browse commentaries by: Person ... by name ... by occupation ... by life dates Place Institution Legislation Case law Browse database by: Key words Editors' login:  | | 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 (1690), Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), eds L. Bently & M. Kretschmer, www.copyrighthistory.org Record Images Record-ID: d_1690a Full title Short Account of the Useful and Laudable Book Trade and its Privileges Full title original language Kurtzer Bericht von der Nützlichen und Fürtrefflichen Buch-Handlung und Deroselben Privilegien. Auffge[se]tzet von Adrian Beiern, J.C. Abstract Adrian Beier 'the younger', also: Beyer (1634-1698) was a professor of Law at Jena and is regarded as an expert in the laws affecting artisans and guilds. His book on the book trade gives a general overview of the nature of this profession, explaining discursively such aspects as, for example, why it was right for the book trade to be organised within the system of merchants' guilds, or why publishers' widows - unlike the widows of other tradesmen - could not easily continue their late husbands' business because of their lack of knowledge of Latin (p. 47). The last pages 48 to 55 deal with the legal constraints on reprinting and with privileges. Beier explains the different conditions applying, on the one hand, to publishers who were subject to universities (e.g. in Salzburg), and, on the other hand, to publishers who were subject to the jurisdiction of the town they were based in. Details are given on the legal consequences of privileges: Saxon privileges needed to be printed in full text at the beginning of each book; booksellers issued with French royal privileges were exempted from taxes and custom duties (p.50). Beier further explains that in principle no publisher has the right to reprint any book whatsoever, be it privileged or not (p.51). He recommends what a publisher who has suffered a reprint to his detriment ought to do: namely, to direct himself to the potentate who originally granted the privilege (p.51) or to the Books Commissioners in Frankfurt or Leipzig (p.52). The widespread problem of extra copies produced by printers in addition to those commissioned by publishers is also discussed (p.53); and the journeymen's standard excuse that every lumberjack, say, is allowed to take home some quantity of wood after he has done his day's work, is refuted by Beier as inappropriate to the book printing profession (p.53). The last section deals with augmented and abridged versions respectively, and it is only here that some sort of notion, albeit a still inchoate one, of authors' rights is outlined. The paragraph (in English translation) reads as follows: "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 / 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." Here the contemporary practice of constantly 'revised' new editions is illustrated by reference to a legal text-book by Johannes Limnaeus (1592-1663). The original "Limnaeus" had been used for the lectures of the Helmstadt professor of law Hermann Conring (1606 - 1681) whose lectures were attended and transcribed by Philipp Andreas Oldenburger (1610-1678), who then published an amended edition of the Limnaeus text-book, without, however, any acknowledgement of Conring's contribution. This then led to a plagiarism dispute. When Beier points to the benefit of even unlicensed abridged versions, his argument is quite similar to the modern economic concept of network externalities. The more attention people pay even to a corrupted version, the more buyers there will be of the original, too. In Beier's view both the author and his publisher have to give their consent first to any adaptations of their works, and it is only "fair and just" for them to complain if they are not asked beforehand. However, the "first publisher" - as Beier puts it at the very end - is the supreme authority. Even if Beier did not put forward any new arguments in the plagiarism and reprinting disputes of the seventeenth century, his books do shed light on the standard practices of printing privileges and, in general, on the book publishing and trading industry of his time. Bibliography N/A Related documents in this database Author Adrian Beier (1634-1698) Publisher Johann Meyer Location Jena Year 1690 Language German Source Scanned from a reprint edited by Reinhard Wittmann (Munich: Kraus International Publishing, 1981) Physical description N/A Illustrations tables N/A Persons referred to Carpzov, Benedict Jr (1595-1666) Doneau, Hugues (1527-1591) Hilliger, Oswald (1583-1619) Limnaeus, Johannes (1592-1603) Persons referred to in commentary Beier, Adrian (1634-1698) Conring, Hermann (1606-1681) Doneau, Hugues (1527-1591) Hilliger, Oswald (1583-1619) Limnaeus, Johannes (1592-1603) Oldenburger, Philipp Andreas (1610-1678) Places referred to N/A Places referred to in commentary Jena Legislation referred to N/A Legislation referred to in commentary N/A Cases referred to Conring v. Oldenburger (plagiarism case) Erfurt Law Faculty's memorandum of 1669 on an unauthorised abridged edition of a law treatise by Carpzov Cases referred to in commentary N/A Institutions referred to Erfurt Law Faculty Institutions referred to in commentary Books Commission (Leipzig) Imperial Books Commission (Frankfurt) Key words abridgements adaptation authorship, legal concept of book trade customs editions, new guilds oral works, protected subject matter plagiarism printing, history of privileges privileges, French privileges, Saxon taxation universities Responsible editor Friedemann Kawohl Copyright status Original document is out of copyright. In so far as these scans are protected by copyright, they are made available on the same terms as translations and commentaries (see home page). | |||||
 | |||||||
| Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, 10 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DZ, UK | |||||||
