Ellen G. White and Her Critics

The Facts Regarding Copyright Law

Here are the facts regarding copyright and publishers as those facts apply to the relations between the United States and Great Britain at the time of the publication of the Conybeare and Howson work and Mrs. White’s book on Paul: EGWC 454.3

There were no copyright relations between the United States and Great Britain until the issuance of the Presidential proclamation on July 1, 1891, which proclamation extended copyright protection to the works of British authors upon compliance with the provisions of the United States copyright law. (The Conybeare and Howson book was first published in England in 1851-52.) British authors residing in England whose books were published prior to that date could not secure any copyright protection in the United States, hence their works were in the public domain as far as United States publishers were concerned. Thus anyone in the United States might reprint them without infringing any copyright or without the necessity of securing permission from the English publisher. As many United States publishers as desired could publish such English works, but could not copyright them in the United States. Although a United States publisher could copyright his own revised or enlarged edition of a work already in the public domain, the copyright protection would cover only the new matter, not the original text. The 1891 proclamation was not retroactive; that is, it did not take out of the public domain any English work that had been printed previous to 1891. (See the Act of March 3, 1891, 26 Star. 1106; and Presidential proclamation of July 1, 1891, 27 Stat. 981.) ^* EGWC 454.4