brainwagon

Project Gutenberg has been digitizing various periodicals from the 19th century, and some of them have included some very nice line art which I thought might be recycled. While scanning a recently completed issue of Punch, I encountered the political cartoon at the right. It carried the caption:

AMERICAN “COPYRIGHT BILL” IN A NEW PART

“DIE VILLAIN!”

“The extinction of literary piracy in America has been decreed.”—Times Leader, March 5.

Decreed perhaps, but not achieved. If one were to adapt this cartoon to modern times, the “pirate” in black on the right could be relabelled “the public domain”.