A BILL TO AMEND AND CONSOLIDATE THE ACTS RESPECTING COPYRIGHT AND TO PERMIT THE UNITED STATES TO ENTER THE INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT UNION COMMITTEE ON PATENTS SIXTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS FLORIAN LAMPERT, Wisconsin, Chairman ALBERT H. VESTAL, Indiana. KNUD WEFALD, Minnesota. FRITZ G. LANHAM, Texas. R. E. L. ALLEN, West Virginia. COPYRIGHTS २ 35 MFP COMMITTEE ON PATENTS, Thursday, January 22, 1925. The CHAIRMAN. This meeting is one called for the consideration (The bill referred to reads as follows:) A BILL To amend and consolidate the acts respecting copyright and to permit the United States to enter WHO MAY SECURE COPYRIGHT AS FIRST OWNER OF THE WORK Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of SEC. 2. The copyright secured by this act shall extend to the work of an (a) When an alien author shall be domiciled or a bona fide resident within (b) When such author is a citizen or subject of any country within the Inter- (d) When a foreign author is a citizen or subject of any country which is a SEC. 3. The author of any compilation, abridgment, adaptation, arrange- 1 7 SEC. 4. Where any work subject matter of copyright under this act has been made by an author entitled to copyright in the United States under the terms of a contract with any person or corporation and during the course of his employment. for hire by any such person or corporation, such employer shall be the first owner of the copyright in such work, subject to the terms of the agreement between the author and his employer. SEC. 5. The owner of the manuscript of an author's work acquired under the author's will shall be presumed to be the owner of the copyright in such work provided the work has not been published no performed or delivered in public. SEC. 6. The publisher of a newspaper or other periodical shall be the first owner of the general copyright therein: Provided, however, That in the case of any literary or other contribution therein the author thereof shall be the owner of the copyright, and in the absence of agreement to the contrary he shall be deemed only to have licensed the publisher to print and publish the said contribution. SEC. 7. Where any person, association, firm or corporation, after this act goes into effect, shall manufacture a motion picture, or shall make and sell a phonographic record or a perforated roll or other cintrivance which shall mechanically reproduce any literary, dramatic, musical or dramatico-musical work, such person, association, firm or corporation shall be the first owner of the copyright in such motion picture or in such phonographic record, perforated roll or other contrivance: Provided, however, That where such motion picture, or such phonographic record or perforated roll or other contrivance, is based in whole or in part upon a work in which copyright subsists, then, during the term of copyright in such work, the copyright in such motion picture shall include only the exclusive right to make, copy, vend, and exhibit it, and the copyright in such phonographic record, roll or other contrivance shall include only the exclusive right to make, copy, and vend it: And provided further, That the copyright in such motion picture, or such phonographic record, roll, or other contrivance, shall be held subject to all the rights of the owner of the copyright in any work upon which such motion picture or such phonographic record, roll, or other contrivance is based. SEC. 8. In the case of any copyright registerd prior to the time when this act goes into effect by a proprietor under a contract, express or implied, by which some of the rights included in the copyright were reserved to the author, the ownership of the said rights is hereby confirmed to the author, or his assigns, who shall be entitled to dispose of them or to bring an action in case of their infringement as fully as the author could do under this act had copyright been originally obtained by him. WORKS PROTECTED SEC. 9. The works for which copyright is secured under this act shall include all the writings of authors whether unpublished or published, and the classes of works enumerated below are expressly recognized as subject matter of copyright, but the following specifications shall not be held to limit the subject matter of copyright nor shall any error in classification invalidate or impair the copy right protection secured under this act: (a) Books, including composite and cyclopedic works, directories, gazetteers, and other compilations; (b) Periodicals, including newspapers; (c) Lectures, sermons, addresses (prepared for oral delivery); (d) Dramatic compositions and dramatico-musical compositions; (e) Musical compositions; (f) Maps; (g) Works of art (drawings, paintings, and sculptures); (h) Reproductions of a work of art, including engravings, lithographs, photoengravings, photogravures, casts, plastic works, or copies by other recognized methods of reproduction; (i) Drawings and plastic works of a scientific or technical character; (j) Photographs; (k) Prints and pictoral illustrations, including prints or labels for articles of manufacture heretofore registrable in the Patent Office under the act approved June 18, 1874; (1) Motion-picture photoplays; (m) Motion pictures other than photoplays; (n) Scenarios for motion pictures; (o) Works of architecture, models or designs for architectural works; (p) Choreographic works and pantomimes, the scenic arrangement or acting form of which is fixed in writing or otherwise; (q) Phonographic records, perforated rolls, and other contrivances by means of which sounds may be mechanically reproduced. SEC. 10. Compilations or abridgments, adaptations, arrangements, dramatizations, translations, or other versions of works in the public domain, or of copyright works when used with the consent of the owner of the copyright in such works, as well as motion pictures and phonographic records, rolls, or other contrivances made from such works, shall be regarded as new works subject to copyright under the provisions of this act; but the making or publication of any such compilations, abridgments, adaptations, arrangements, dramatizations, translations, motion pictures, or phonographic records, rolls, or other contrivances shall not affect the force or validity of any subsisting copyright upon the matter employed or any part thereof, or be construed to imply an exclusive right to such use of the original works, or to secure or extend copyright in such original works. SEC. 11. No copyright shall subsist in the original text of any work which is in the public domain, or in any publication of the United States Government, or any reprint, in whole or in part, thereof: Provided, however, That the publication or republication by the Government, either separately or in a public document, of any material in which copyright is subsisting shall not be taken to cause any abridgment or annulment of the copyright or to authorize any use or appropriation of such copyright material without the consent of the copyright owner. EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS SECURED SEC. 12. It is expressly recognized and declared that the copyright hereby granted secures to authors of works of literature, music, the drama, and the fine arts, and to the administrators, executors, or assigns of such authors, the exclusive right to produce, perform, or distribute their works by any means whatsoever, and, subject to the provisions of this act, any person entitled thereto shall have the exclusive right: (a) To copy, print, reprint, publish, produce, reproduce, or transmit the copyright work in any form; and to vend or otherwise dispose of such work and to authorize its public use in any manner or by any means whatsoever; (b) To translate said work into other languages or dialects, or to make any other version thereof; (c) To reproduce said work in the form of a motion picture and to exhibit the same; (d) To make, copy, and vend any phonographic record, or any perforated roll or other contrivance by means of which, in whole or in part, the copyright work may be mechanically reproduced; (e) To dramatize the copyright work if it be a nondramatic work, and to convert it into a novel or other nondramatic work if it be a drama; (f) To convert a copyright motion-picture photoplay which is not based upon a work in which copyright is subsisting into a story or dramatic composition; (g) To arrange or adapt the copyright work if it be a musical work; (h) To complete, execute, and finish said work if it be a model or design for a work of art; (i) To deliver or authorize the delivery of said work in public if it be a lecture, sermon, or address prepared for oral delivery; (j) To communicate the copyright work to the public by means of radio broadcasting, telephoning, telegraphing, or any other method for transmitting sounds or pictures; (k) To perform or represent said work publicly in whole or in part, if it be a dramatic or dramatico-musical work, and if such work is unpublished, to vend any manuscript or any record whatsoever thereof; to make or to procure the making, in whole or in part, of any transcription or record thereof or of any other contrivance by or from which it may in any manner or by any method be exhibited, performed, represented, produced, or reproduced; and to exhibit, perform, represent, produce, or reproduce it in any manner or by any method whatsoever; (1) To perform said work publicly if it be a musical composition; and for the purpose of public performance and for the purposes set forth in subsection (a) hereof, to make any arrangement or setting of it or of the melody of it in any system of notation or any form of record in which the thought of an author may be recorded and from which it may be read or reproduced: Provided, however, That nothing in this act shall be construed to prohibit the performance of copyright musical works by churches or public schools, provided the performance is |