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Secretary of State recommends republic grant copyrights
On this day in 1837, Robert A. Irion, secretary of state for the
Republic of Texas, recommended in his annual report to the Congress that
the republic grant copyrights. This was not the first discussion of
copyrights in the Republic of Texas. On March 15, 1836, the delegates to
the Convention of 1836 voted to add to the Constitution Article II,
Section 3, authorizing patents and copyrights, but provided for a
three-year delay before implementation. In 1838 Congress made an attempt
to pass a special law authorizing copyright of a map for five years, but
this failed to pass. Finally, on January 28, 1839, President Mirabeau B.
Lamar approved an act that provided "patent" rights, running for
fourteen years, on "composition of matter, liberal arts, sciences or
literature, books, maps or charts," to citizens and those who had filed
intentions of becoming citizens, upon payment of a thirty-dollar fee.
Only three copyrights were issued, and of the copyrighted works only one
was published, George William Bonnell's Topographical Description of
Texas, to Which Is Added an Account of the Indian Tribes (Austin:
Clark, Wing, and Brown, 1840). The imprint of this small volume is
unique in that it states the copyright was secured in the Republic of
Texas. Inasmuch as two of the three works registered in the republic
were never published and the third was registered in the United States
as well as in Texas, when Texas was admitted into the Union, there was
no necessity for Texas copyrights to be incorporated into the United
States copyright system, and no action was taken.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- COPYRIGHTS IN THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS
- IRION, ROBERT ANDERSON
- BONNELL, GEORGE W.
- REPUBLIC OF TEXAS
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Alleged attack on Fort Ringgold draws machine-gun fire (1899)
- Texas heroes at Tarawa (1943)
- Texas writer confronts SMU isolationists (1941)
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