Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article Fifth. On the Ownership of Authors
379. By the name author is understood everyone who by his own talent invents something, of which sort is: a. one who has written a book; b. one who has composed a work of art, such as a musical rhythm or painting; c. one who has discovered a scientific theory, an art, a medical remedy, etc.
Rights of authors. 1. By natural right an author has perfect ownership in the thing which he himself invented before it has become of public right: for each one has a right in the fruits of his own talent; wherefore as true owner he can dispose concerning his own thing according to his choice.
a. Therefore he acts against justice and is bound to reparation of damage who publishes manuscripts against the will of the author, or who steals his secret from the inventor of an art.
b. Therefore he acts against justice who publishes in print, against the will of the author, the lecture of a professor or the sermon of an orator. Nor is the appeal to the fact valid for the contrary opinion, that public speeches either of preachers or of deputies in assemblies are printed in newspapers; for these things are done with the authors knowing and not contradicting. - But by that very fact that someone teaches publicly or preaches, the proposed doctrine becomes in some way of public right; therefore it cannot be impeded that hearers make it their own, use it according to opportunity, or write it out for their own private use and lend the writing to others.
- In a work already published, the author retains ownership and the right of publishing the work further, but grants to all the use of the published work. For the author is judged to retain that right which from the nature of the thing he can retain, but to grant that which from the nature of the thing he ought to grant; but even after publication has been made he can retain ownership in his own work and the right of publishing the work further; and by that very fact that he publishes the work, he ought to grant its use to all who wish it and pay the owed price. - Besides, to each one naturally belongs the right in the fruits of his own work; but he cannot receive the fruits from his own work unless he retains ownership in the published work and the right of publishing it further.
a. There are those who say that the right of property and further publication in a work or invention already published is lost by the publication itself; and therefore, if the right belongs to the author or inventor of prohibiting that his work or invention be published by others, this is had not from natural law, but from positive law.1 Although their opinion does not differ much from the proposed one, because they readily concede that a positive law of this kind is altogether consonant with natural equity, nevertheless it is more aptly affirmed that the right of property is indeed from nature, but in many things obscure and indeterminate and therefore must be declared and determined by positive law.2
b. Therefore he acts against the right of the author and publisher and is bound to reparation of damage who sees to it that a published work be printed again without the author consenting. - He who, without the knowledge of the author or publisher, sees to it that some work be printed and published in distant regions inflicts damage insofar as by this reason a greater profit of the author or bookseller is impeded, which can now happen more easily, with means of communication considered, than formerly. - To multiply a book or sheet by transcription for private use, whether for oneself or for another, provided the transcription is not published, is neither unjust nor illicit, because the buyer, by force of the ownership which he acquires in the published work, can dispose of it for his every advantage if the author suffers no damage from it; but from use of this kind the author morally suffers no damage.
c. Whether by natural right the right of impeding that the translation of his work into another language be published belongs to the author is not certainly established, because it is not established whether publication of the translation in reality harms the author and whether the profit which the translator receives exceeds the labor of translation. But positive laws almost everywhere reserve to the author the right of publishing a translation.
- Civil laws which prohibit the work of some author from being printed without the consent of those whose interest it is, not even after his death unless a certain time has elapsed,3 or which reserve to the author the right of publishing a translation of his own work, oblige in conscience, since they constitute rights (n. 356).
1 Among recent authors Vermeersch defends this opinion, Quaestiones de iustitia, n. 240 ss.
2 Cf. Ballerini-Palmieri, III, n. 53.
3 C. A., laws for the protection of copyright, Section 13, according to which, thirty years after the death of the author have elapsed, his work can be printed by anyone.