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444 COPYRIGHT
work otherwise, to the prejudice of the original pub- lisher, and the publisher must not sell copies to the injury of the future market of the author, English de- This general doctrine was worked out in a chain of velopment early English cases, the first of which was that of Sweet V. Cater, in 184 1, where Vice Chancellor Shad- well decided that the plaintiff publisher who had con- tracted with Sir Edward Sugden to publish a tenth edition of 2500 copies of his legal work, could, until the specified copies were sold, prevent the publishing of another edition by the defendant publisher, de- spite any arrangements between the author and the latter. It was strongly upheld by Vice Chancellor Page Wood in the case of Stevens v. Benning, in 1854, affirmed on appeal by the Lords Justices, and Reade V. Bentley, in 1857. In the first case Forsyth con- tracted for the publication of his legal work, under- taking to make future revision for subsequent edi- tions, with the publishing firm of the elder Benning, and on its bankruptcy, four hundred copies of the sec- ond edition were sold to Stevens & Norton, which firm sued to prevent the younger Benning from pub- lishing a third edition as revised by Forsyth. The Vice Chancellor held that though the plaintiffs might presumably sell the copies, if done without disadvant- age to the author, the original contract was not an assignment, but a personal contract which could not pass to the plaintiffs, and therefore denied an injunc- tion. In the second case, where Charles Reade sought to resume his rights in " Peg Woffington" and " Chris- tie Johnstone," from his publisher Bentley, after all expenses had been paid and profits on several editions accounted for, the Vice Chancellor held that the con- tract, as of a personal nature, could be terminated by the author when that did not involve loss to the other party. Copies printed to replace others destroyed by
