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The aim of this book is to arouse a general feeling that there is sound good sense in the demand made in the Report of the Society of Authors for 1889.
“We demand” the Report ran, “for Literary Property tlie same jealousy and the same resolution to obtain just treatment as prevails in all other branckes of business”
By this statement I hope to escape the imputation of having failed to do anything which I have never tried to do.
There are in the office of the Society of Authors records of publishing undertaken upon every conceivable and inconceivable plan. All, however, fall under one of these five heads:—(1) Sale out-right, (2) Limited Sale, (3) The Half-profit System, (4) The Royalty System (with certain variations), and (5) Publication by Commission (also with certain variations).
And under these five heads, the enquiry into the methods of publishing is conducted.
It would seem that the peculiar, unbusiness-like, and but too frequently disgraceful manner with which Literary Property is treated has its origin in the two facts—(1), that the existence of this property is not generally realised; and (2), that, where realised, its value can only with difficulty be estimated.
As a consequence the law regulating a property, which appears even to its possessors so vague and ill-defined, is in its turn obscure, incomplete, and inconclusive.
One preliminary chapter has, therefore, been devoted to a brief consideration of the nature of Literary Property, and another to a brief demonstration of the fact that an approximate estimate of its value in particular cases can often be arrived at.
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