Copyright issues make the headlines every few days, often about Google making millions of books available on the Internet.

Back in the early 1840s, it was a similar issue—on a smaller scale. Supposed culprits were American publishers paying no royalties on books that had been first published in England.

An important event in Canadian history Charles was marked when Dickens was angry at those American publishers in 1842 when he arrived in Montreal following a trip to the United States. Stephen Leacock notes in his book Charles Dickens, His Life and Work, that Dickens wrote home:

Is it not a horrible thing that scoundrel booksellers should grow rich here from publishing books, the authors of which do not reap one farthing from their issue by scores of thousands; and that every vile, blackguard and detestable newspaper, so filthy and bestial that no honest man would admit one into his house for a scullery doormat, should be able to publish these same writings…?

In 1880, the copyright issue was still around. In November, the Literary and Debating Society at the Mechanics’ Institute of Montreal had this item as a subject of debate: “Is the action of the American Publishers respecting copyright likely to advance literature?”

MIM member Anthony Loftus argued for the U. S. disregard for British copyright, saying “Apart from the moral bearing of the matter, any action which has the effect of disseminating literature must advance it.”

Gilbert Wanless, for the negative, contended that the flood of literature introduced by the Americans, and filched from English authors, had the effect of stifling new literature and therefore of retarding it.

The debate was decided in the affirmative.

Secretary of the MIM debating group was Maxwell Goldstein, who later was a founder of Montreal’s Temple Emanu-El, now at Sherbrooke and Elm. Another member, 22-year-old Clarence de Sola, was the third son of the Rev. Abraham de Sola, noted speaker and professor at McGill College. In 1890, Clarence de Sola planned and oversaw construction of the Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue, then on Stanley Street. His substantial residence, completed in 1913, still exists at 1380 Pine Avenue.

Members of the MIM debating society in 1880 were:

M. S. Berry Canada Guarantee Co.

Anthony Loftus P. Office

James Crankshaw 103 St. François Xavier

John McCallum 68 Bleury

Gilbert Wanless 43 Notre Dame

H. Y. Bulmer 735 Dorchester

Maxwell Goldstein P. O. Box 933

Jonathan Findlay 49 Metcalfe

C. J. de Sola McGill College

W. S. Walker St. James Street

Chas. Stevens 38 Hippolyte Street

D. J. M. Darling 98 St. Chas Borromé

A. Stuart 143 Bleury

G. Tuck 127 St. […..] St.

J. Anthony McShane 238 Guy St.

J. B. Henderson 41 Mayer St.

J. T. Dutig 28 Aylmer St.

E. J. Stipple c/o Messrs Greenshields & Bartsted

Henry Lanpard 28 Cadieux