re no
copyright, any printer might sell duplicates of the book as soon as it
was issued, and could sell them at a much less price than the original
edition, as the book would have cost him nothing to prepare. The
practical result would thus be that few could afford to spend study and
research in writing books, and the volumes which would be printed would
be apt to be only those of so cheap and worthless a sort that no one
would take the trouble to copy them. The monopoly produced by a
copyright takes nothing from the public which it previously enjoyed. The
writer of a book creates something which did not before exist; and if
people do not wish to buy that which he has created, they are at perfect
liberty not to do so. The monopoly relates only to the production and
sale of that particular book. Others are at liberty to write similar
books upon the same subject, which will compete with the first; and the
same information may be given in different words without infringing the
copyright.

It seems clear enough, then, that the monopoly which occurs in the use
of a copyright, is of an entirely different sort from the monopolies
which we have previously considered. Competition is not destroyed by it,
and its only effect upon the public relates to an entirely new
production, which is not a necessity, and which the public could not
have had an opportunity to enjoy if the copyright law had not made it
possible for the author to write the book with the prospect of being
repaid for his labor by the sale of the printed volume.

As already stated, the granting of patents is based on the same
principle as the granting of copyrights. A clause of the Constitution
empowers the general government to grant to authors and inventors for
limited periods the exclusive right to their respective writings and
discoveries.

If we judge the granting of patents by the aims and intentions which are
held in the theory of the law, we must conclude that it is a highly
wise, just, and beneficial act. The man who invents a new machine or
device which benefits the public by making easier or cheaper some
industrial operation, performs a valuable service to the world. But he
can receive no reward for this service, if any one is at liberty to make
and sell the new machine he has invented; and unless the patent laws
gave him the power to repay himself for the labor and expense of
planning and designing his new device, it is altogether probable that he
wou