recently settled by the International Copyright Act of 1886, passed to enable Her Majesty to accede to the Berne Convention, printed hereafter in Appendix B. In view however, of the recent American Copyright Bill, printed hereafter in Appendix C., and the discussions which have arisen thereupon, it is important to point out that the Bill, similarly to the existing statutes, is absolutely silent on the question whether the American Bill is to be met by any retaliatory measures or not, leaving such a question to be dealt with, similarly to any other question with a foreign country, by Order in Council to the same extent as and no further than it may be dealt with under the existing law.

Existing Copyrights.-This brings us to a subject of great practical importance. In accordance with a well known rule of law, it is proposed that the Bill shall not be retrospective, and that all the Acts which it is proposed to repeal with respect to future copyrights shall continue in full force with respect to existing copyrights. This proposal, looking to the extreme obscurity of the existing law, may cause some practical inconvenience. And it is suggested that as far as possible, while existing rights are preserved, the remedies for infringing the new rights and the remedies for infringing the old rights should be the same. It should also be carefully and expressly enacted that the proposed alterations as to abridgments, dramatisations, &c., are equally to apply whether the book abridged or dramatised, &c., is published before the Act or after it.

Another branch of this subject is of even greater importance. By clause 7 it is proposed that—

(1.) The copyright or performing right which at the time of the passing of this Act shall be subsisting in any book or other subject of copyright or performing right theretofore published, sold, or disposed of (as the case may be), shall endure for the term limited by the existing enacments, or for the term fixed by this Act, whichever is the longer, and shall be the property of the person who at the time of passing this Act shall be the proprietor of such copyright or performing right.

(2.) Provided always, that in all cases in which such copyright or performing right shall belong in whole or in part to a publisher or other person who shall have acquired it for other consideration than that of natural love and affection, such copyright or performing right shall not be extended by this Act, but shall endure for the term which shall subsist therein at the time of passing this Act, and no longer, unless the original copyright owner, if he shall be living, or his personal representative if he shall be dead, and the proprietor of such copyright or performing right shall, before the expiration of such term, agree to accept the benefits of this Act in respect of such book or other subject of copyright or performing right, and shall cause a minute of such consent in the form in that behalf given in Schedule Three to this Act to be entered in the proper register, in which case such copyright or performing right shall endure for the term fixed by this Act, and shall be the property of such person or persons as in such minute shall be expressed. This just clause, which may happen to be very advantageous to some authors who have sold their copyrights, is modelled on s. 4 of the Act of 1842 (which in its turn was modelled on s. 8 of the Act of 1814), and was recommended by the Royal Commission of 1878.

Such are the leading heads of Lord Monkswell's Bill, which will now shortly come on for second reading in the House of Lords.

In that House the Bill will have the advantage of being offered to the criticism of the three surviving Parliamentary members of the Royal Commission of 1878, namely, the Duke of Rutland, Lord Herschell, and Lord Knutsford.

II.

EXTRACTS

FROM

REPORT OF COPYRIGHT COMMISSION.

Recommendation of "Life & 30 Years" as Term for the future 27

49

51

53

55

55

56

Sculpture

Paintings. Assignment of Copyright on Sale of Pictures
Registration of Copyright and Deposit of Copies
Forfeiture of Pirated Copies

Supply of Gratuitous Copies to British Museum and other
Public Libraries

Music and the Drama.-Penalties

PRELIMINARY NOTE.

THE extracts here given have been made with the view of presenting to the ordinary reader all that is material at the present day in the Report of the Commission. The terse and expressive language of the Commissioners has been left unaltered.

The Commission, which owed its origin to the Canadian Bill of 1875, which is scheduled to the Imperial Canada Copyright Act 1875, 38 & 39 Vict. c. 53., was dated 17th April 1876 (a prior Commission of 1875, of which Lord Roseberry was one of the members, being revoked in consequence of the death of its Chairman, Lord Stanhope), and the report is dated 24th May 1878.

The Commissioners were, Lord John Manners, M.P., (now Duke of Rutland) the Earl of Devon (since deceased), Sir Charles L. Young (since deceased), Sir Henry Holland (now Lord Knutsford), Sir John Rose (since deceased), Sir H. Drummond Woolf, Sir Louis Mallet (since deceased), Sir Julius Benedict (since deceased), Farrer Herschell Esq., Q.C. (now Lord Herschell, and sometime Lord Chancellor), Edward Jenkins, Esq., M.P., Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Q.C. (now Mr. Justice Stephen), William) Smith, Esq., D.C.L., J. A. Froude, Esq., Anthony Trollope, Esq. (since deceased), and F. R. Daldy, Esq. The Secretary of the Commission was J. Leybourn Goddard, Esq., Barrister-at-Law.