To the Editor of Liberty:

The question of copyright, which has been so elaborately discussed in the pages of Liberty, is, to my mind, one of the simplest of economic problems.

Ideas are things that cannot be smelled, tasted, seen, heard, or felt. As they exist exclusively in the brain, they are non-transferable. All economic quantities must be put into concrete form to make them exchangeable, for economics is the science of exchange.

What, then, have we to consider, in the production of a book, that comes within the pale of economics? Only the amount of work in formulating the ideas into an objective reality. Beyond this we may not go. For things which the senses cannot cognize are not economic quantities. Hence the total amount of work in the production of a book—the objective thing—is all that the author can claim as property. Property consists of all labor-products and useful services that gratify human desires, and whose exchangeable value is determined by the amount of work and time required to produce them. All that an author can rightfully claim from the public is as much useful work, in one form or another, as he has put into his book. Equity, therefore, does not permit copyright or monopoly.

I do not invade an author’s, or an inventor’s right, by copying his book, or by making a similar machine. I have an inherent right to the use of my eyes, brains, and hands to copy a book, or imitate a machine. In doing either I rob neither the author nor the inventor, for my labor is my own. I have therefore a right to compete with the author, or inventor, in the same markets for the sale of my products. No one, under the law of equal freedom, can rightfully prohibit me from so doing.

Liberty, therefore, is in the right, notwithstanding it has such gladiators to combat as Yarros, Simpson, Donisthorpe, Fuller, and Bilgram.

Wm. Hanson