according to david saunders, the first catalogue of harpers contained 234 titles of which 90% were english and prior to the civil war, approximately 50% of all fiction bestsellers were unauthorized foreign works. and the report of the british royal commission on copyrights worries that they have cheap rates of 40 million, perhaps most active ones in the world. and unauthorized reprinting can be viewed as a vast free rider problem or maybe in easy rider in the sense that there were some cost associated. but a lot of overhead was removed. but why do the authors continue to write and publish if the incentives were removed. in part because copyright laws of their own country allow them to capture the domestic benefits of their labor. they might hope for payments from american publishers and this was irresistible to american publishers. and the american public domain, as i call it, it was parasitic in this regard and it runs without the risk of resource without feeling to incentivize it. the publishers are also producers unlike authors they require economic incentives to out and produce. so why

according to david saunders, the harper firm's first catalogue contained 234 titles of which 90% were english reprints. prior to the civil war, approximately 50% of all of the fiction bestsellers were unauthorized foreign works. the report of the 1878 british royal commission on copyright worried that american publishers could issue british books in the words of the commission at cheap rates to a population of 40, perhaps the most active readers in the world. unauthorized reprinting can be viewed as a vast free rider problem to read or maybe easy rider given the sense that there were some costs associated with pirating. but a lot of overhead was removed. but if the reprinting the road so heavily on the foreign authors, why did the authors continue to write and publish? whwhited foreign authors contine to write and publish if the incentives were removed? in part because the copyright laws of their own countries allow them to capture the domestic benefits of their labors. they might hope to get payments from american publishers and complain about the scoundrel re- printers that american