The Statute underwent additions and modifications from this time, being at some periods allowed to expire altogether, as it did on the 25th of April, 1694. But, literary property being openly and frequently pirated, a remedy was urged upon the Legislature as necessary in the years 1703, 1706, and 1709. A bill was introduced by Mr. Wortley, and finally passed in the latter year. It is the 8 Anne, c. 21; the fifth section of it enacting “That nine copies of each book or books” ... “shall be delivered to the warehouse-keeper of the Company of Stationers for the time being,” ... “for the use of the Royal Library, the Libraries of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Libraries of the four Universities of Scotland, the Library of Sion College in London, and the Library commonly called the Library belonging to the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh respectively.”
To evade this Act, publishers entered only the title of a part, or a volume of any work, as it was generally understood that the claims could be enforced only as to the part or volume entered, and that nine copies of no other volume or part could be claimed; and so, as the Act was practically eluded, enactment followed enactment, until the 5 and 6 Victoria, c. 45, made a very definite provision on the subject; not only ordering the delivery at the British Museum of all books, but particularizing the meaning of the word book: “That in the construction of this Act, the word _Book_ shall be construed to mean and include every volume, part or division of a volume, pamphlet, sheet of letter-press, sheet of music, map, chart, or plan separately published,” a penalty of £5., besides the value of the copy, being the fine for non-compliance.
In May, 1850, the Trustees conferred on Panizzi, by power of attorney, the unthankful duty of enforcing, in their name, the provisions of the Copyright Act. With his accustomed energy, with a firm sense of duty, and with a zeal, in some instances almost amounting to harshness, did he face the difficulties of the situation. Were it simply to record the success which attended his devotion to the interests of the Institution he served so faithfully, we should have to quote his own words. “The Trustees testified to their sense of the value of my services in this matter by awarding me £100 a year;” but, as must be admitted on the testimony of documents now before us, in his own handwriting, his zeal was rather excessive; his battles with the publishers brought him odium, and, at times, even personal vituperation, although he himself undoubtedly intended to act with forbearance, and with that courtesy which was one of his chief characteristics. Did it ever occur to Panizzi that the noblest literature, that of Greece and Rome, knew no such law? that, even supposing it might be necessary, in the nascent state of literature in the sixteenth century, this more than protection may be most injurious in more modern times, exactly as the state protection of a given manufacture might primarily be good, but, for a permanency, would be unsound policy?