Shaw to claim a right to royalties from the street boys; but it would be
idle only because it would not be possible to collect them. He is able
to collect them on his play because, and only because, his play exists
in a form which is susceptible of legal protection. If in justice he has
a right to these, as he no doubt has, he would, if abstract justice were
the sole determining factor, have an equal right to royalties on the use
of his peculiar hoot. He fails to have any such right because, as a
matter of fact, the principle of abstract justice with which we are here
concerned--that every one has a right to everything that he himself
produces--has, in common with all abstract moral principles whatsoever,
no application to cases in which, from the nature of things, it is
wholly impossible to enforce it.
And the same criticism is applicable to the other argument before us,
which admits that a man who invents a productive machine, or who writes
a remunerative play, is, so long as he lives, entitled, because he is
the true producer of them, to certain profits arising from the use of
either; but adds that his rights to such profits end with his own life,
and lose all sanction in justice the moment they are transferred to an
heir.
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