Conger (syndicate)

The conger was a system common in

bookselling Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librari ...

in 18th and early 19th century England, for financing the printing of a

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...

. The term referred to a

syndicate A syndicate is a self-organizing group of individuals, companies, corporations or entities formed to transact some specific business, to pursue or promote a shared interest. Etymology The word ''syndicate'' comes from the French language, Frenc ...

of booksellers, mostly in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, who bought shares to finance the

's printing. Each member agreed to take so many copies for sale themselves, and the final profit was split in proportion to the members' initial financial input. Their names all appeared on the title pages as co-

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

s, though one of the major publishing houses usually took the lead in setting the deal up. Prior to the

Statute of Anne The Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act 1710 (cited either as 8 Ann. c. 21 or as 8 Ann. c. 19), was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1710, which was the first statute to provide for copyright regulated by the g ...

, the Conger (often seen capitalized) also had an effect on

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

. After the printing became common, publishers took the position that having purchased a work from an author, the right to control its publication continued permanently. Courts supported the claim via precedent, until the Statute was passed early in the 18th century, after which it was law that literary works went into the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

after a fixed time set by statute. F. A. Mumby, ''Publishing and Bookselling,'' rev. ed.1954, p 139-40, Based on

Augustine Birrell Augustine Birrell King's Counsel, KC (19 January 185020 November 1933) was a British Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party politician, who was Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1907 to 1916. In this post, he was praised for enabling tenant farmers t ...

, ''Seven Lectures on the Law and History of Copyright in Books'', 1899 This system seems to have been mostly used in the financing of major projects -- for example, multi-volume works such as

encyclopedia An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

s. Shares were often subdivided and re-sold, so the actual balance of ownership became very convoluted. {{reflist Book publishing companies Bookshops of the United Kingdom