For most of the 1800s, the United States did not recognize the copyrights of books written by foreign authors. As a result, many U.S. publishers printed “pirated”— unauthorized—editions of Charles Dickens and other British authors without paying them royalties. A history of book publishing noted, “[U.S.] publishers claimed that pirating [foreign] works allowed their prices to remain low, which in turn made the works more accessible to the public at large.” There were (eventually successful) attempts in Congress to recognize foreign copyrights in exchange for other countries recognizing U.S. copyrights. At the time, one U.S. publisher described these efforts as the “clamor of two hundred authors against the interests of fifty-five million people.” Do copyright laws benefit authors at the expense of readers? If so, why does the U.S. Constitution give Congress the right to enact copyright laws?