No subject

"Americans, expecting him to be grateful for their warm reception, were
staggered when this young British goodwill ambassador at the beginning of
1842, at a dinner held in his honour in Boston, dared to criticize them as
pirates while urging the merits of international copyright, which at that
point in American history would have seen vast amounts of Yankee capital
heading overseas with little reciprocation. He did not back down. A week
later, in Hartford, he argued that a native American literature would
flourish only when American publishers were compelled by law to pay all
writers their due, rather than being able to publish the works of any
foreign author for free, a bad custom which only serve to discourage
literary production by American citizens. Although the American people were
divided on the question of the United States's joining the international
copyright union, book, newspaper, and magazine publishers were utterly
opposed, and successfully lobbied against any such move in Congress.
Undaunted, Dickens circulated a pro-copyright letter which he and a number
of other British writers had signed, firm in the belief of the righteousness
of their cause."

Nanna