The American Congress has passed the Copyright Bill, and henceforward
any English author who prints his work in America, or sells it to a publisher to print there, will have the same rights as an American. The change will enrich English popular authors, whose works will no longer be legally pirated, and who are sufficiently in demand to allow of their selling cheap editions ; but it will not, we fancy, be greatly felt by the ordinary writer. Indeed, it will be very difficult, in so vast a territory, for the very popular man not to be beaten by direct piracy of the kind practised on Macaulay,—viz., the republica tion of a book in newspaper form at 3d. Before the law could be set in motion, the market would be glutted. American publishers are, however, keen men, and the law will certainly tempt them to make liberal bargains for early proofs.
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