As Samuel French was building an empire in the United States on the back of foreign dramatists, another group of enterprising publishers established lucrative mediating businesses in alternative markets. Alexander Byers, commonly known as one of America’s most successful theatrical thieves, mediated the movement of intellectual creation between authors and audiences by developing business models outside and within formal legal frameworks for over three decades.1 Studying the ascendancy of Samuel French and his associates is instructive for understanding how mediating power over the production process was asserted through order and methodical organization. Byers’ methods of mediation are an equally compelling study of the state of nature.