John Wurtele Lovell: a pirate's history

The copyright industries protest that the black flag still flies in cyberspace. The International Intellectual Property Alliance estimates ‘conservatively’ that the US copyright industries suffer annual global trade losses of $25–30 billion, not including internet piracy. In 2003 their estimated figure for books alone was over $600 million. The Alliance does acknowledge ‘vast progress in global copyright law reform’ as it ‘celebrates’ the 10th anniversary of the TRIPS agreement. It welcomes the WIPO internet treaties, but warns that ‘government policy makers must create the political will to enforce their new laws aggressively’. The future has yet to happen. But there are historical models.

The 1891 US Copyright Act in effect put an end to the career of one of the most flamboyant American ‘pirates’, John Wurtele Lovell. His father was John Lovell, the Canadian printer who had so enraged the London publishers with his local reprints. In 1872 John Lovell had built a huge printing factory at Rouse's Point, just on the American side of the Canadian border. Works were typeset in Montreal, printed in America, then re-imported for binding and sale in Canada. This elaborate journey ensured that Lovell could reprint British works without breach of Imperial copyright. His son John W. Lovell, aged only 21, was put in charge of the Rouse's Point enterprise. It employed 500 people, and was the largest printing and publishing establishment north of Albany, New York. But John W. Lovell had even bigger dreams.