Here’s a paraphrase to diminish the abstruse verbiage of the era, so you can get wot he sed. —⁂— The printers and publishers have been lobbying to kill your B

Here’s a paraphrase to diminish the abstruse verbiage of the era, so you can get wot he sed. —⁂— The printers and publishers have been lobbying to kill your Bill, so someone suggested I and another famous author show our support in a petition to Parliament to pass it, or at least one like it. I guess they asked me because I’m old [he was 68 at the time; he lived to 80], and so my relatives have a more obvious vested interest in extending copyright past my death. I don’t like to get involved in public affairs, and I like to think Parliament is wise enough to see why this Bill should obviously be passed, without us author having to point it out—the printers and publishers, having made their money and respectability from us, now want to squash us. I simply cannot believe that Parliament will be deceived by their very weak arguments. I also don’t want to petition Parliament about this as just one person, because it doesn’t go far enough: I hold that it is the right of all authors, that copyright should be forever. As you said in your speech, English common law used to work that way. So honestly, while they’re complaining about the idea of extending copyright, I want them to explain why we shouldn’t go back to how things were before we limited copyright! It’s obviously on them to show this, but they’re not even trying—they’ve framed the whole discussion relative to how things are now, which was a compromise between no copyright (in publishing something, you give it away completely) and perpetual copyright (inheritable and transferable). I get that literature isn’t quite the same as other kinds of property. Some people have said it should be treated the same as mechanical inventions and chemistry, but that’s obvious nonsense. I say rights of ownership are more fundamental in literature than other kinds of property. So: I’m not going to formally petition Parliament. (There were others that should have spoken up, but they haven’t.) I’ll content myself with writing this open letter so others can see what I believe, and understand that we’re with you, Serjeant Talfourd; thanks for helping us out, we do appreciate it. That’s all I wanted to say. I’ve got no arguments or facts to add, I, or my friends Coleridge, Scott, Southey, or others. I can’t say anything to convince people, if they weren’t already convinced by your excellent speech when you introduced the Bill, or which other writers have said in the public journals. I’m confident your Bill will pass. But even if these printers and publishers win for the moment, justice will win eventually. And in the mean time, all us authors thank you and your assistants for your efforts, for the rest of our lives.