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for it. Now, mind you, all they paid her for was the first serial rights. They could not have paid her less than $5, but she made no stipulation and nobody does-I mean none of these minor authors, who may be the great authors of the future, and those are the men who are going to be the Edgar Allen Poes of the future, and men that we do not know anything about at all. Well, she sold it to this magazine for $5. A few months after the publication she came across it in a song, and she wrote to the musical publisher and said, "How come"? They replied that they had bought the music rights from the magazine for $10. That is a minor instance of the thing that is going on, and is likely to go on, if the author is not very carefully protected. Many of those things happen.

I have had some experiences that I think are rather amusing, in a way. I wrote some verses 25 years ago that I got $8 for from a magazine. Those verses have gone all over the country and all over the world, and for some reason that I could never solve, they were exceedingly popular, and they are circulating still, possibly under different titles, and sometimes with other names attached. I read them before the public, and somebody says, "Why I did not know you wrote that." Those things are going all over the world. I do not care and really I am very pleased that they have, and many of us feel that way about it. But some verses of mine that I wrote 12 years ago, I came across recently, and I was practically accused of plagiarism, because some one had taken those verses to England, put them into old English type, and they were sung at the dedication of the Girl Guides Headquarters in London, in the presence of Princess Mary and Lord Powell, who were very much pleased with these newly discovered old English hymns. Well, of course, after a good deal of correspondence, I had an acknowledgement of them, all around, but I could not have sued for them, because it would not be worth my while and it is not worth the while in a great many of these cases. I can tell you of any number of these little violations that occur all of the time, and which sometimes are very grievous to the young authors who have some few poems that are really making money.

There is one thing that I must say in closing, and that is the matter of radio. Now, you know the radio rights and the television rights of the future are among the new things, not at all contemplated by the law. Under the law authors, except a dramatic author and a composer, have no rights whatever in radio. That is because, under the present law, there is a specific assurance of the right of public representation granted to the dramatic author and to the music composer, but not such a similar right to the ordinary author who writes. fiction or who writes poetry. The result is that, under the present law, the radio people can do practically what they want with our work, and they do it. A few days ago one of my publishers called me up and said to me, "What was that poem you read over the radio to-day?" I said, "I have not read over the radio," and he said. "Somebody read something of yours," and gave me the title. He got it a little bit wrong, but I identified it as a poem from one of my books; and my publishers have no authority, and I have no authority, to stop that kind of thing. My verses are being read over the radio almost every day. Now, it is altogether at the option of the broadcaster whether he even wants to give me credit for those

verses. He can read them as his own compositions if he wants to. I do not even get the credit for having written those verses, and the celebrated advertising value of radio may be null and void in my case. The CHAIRMAN. I will assure you, Mr. Guiterman, we will try to correct that in the new bill.

Mr. RICH. When they published your verses in old English, were you given credit for them?

Mr. GUITERMAN. No; no; they were published in an old English hymn.

Mr. RICH. Would not it be very difficult, then, amongst writers, if we do not have this law drawn up correctly, that there would be a chance to litigation among writers because of stolen verses?

Mr. GUITERMAN. That does happen, of course, that verses are stolen, but what usually happens-verses have been stolen from me— but what you can do is simply notify the publishers that these verses are yours, and sometimes the publisher will send you a check. These verses I have spoken of were published once in my name in the London Punch. Of course, when that happens to a reputable magazine they will always make acknowledgment, and if you demand payment, I am quite sure they would pay you.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Guiterman, I will have to thank you for your kind sentiments.

Now, gentlemen of the committee, we have had the honor and pleasure of listening to great authors, to great novelists, to great producers, to great dramatists, and I am going to have the pleasure of calling upon one whom I consider one of the most eminent and distinguished music composers of our country, the gentleman who has written such wonderful music as Maytime, Blossom Time, Student Prince, Desert Song, and so on, Mr. Sigmund Romberg.

STATEMENT OF SIGMUND ROMBERG

Mr. ROMBERG. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, may I be permitted for a second

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Romberg, do you prefer to make your statement without any interruptions, or do you desire to have us ask you questions?

Mr. ROMBERG. Any questions that you want to ask me

The CHAIRMAN. Go right ahead, Sigmund.

Mr. ROMBERG. I just want to correct one wrong impression: Mr. Arthur Guiterman just said that any radio station can take any of his poems and send them over the air-I know that any lawyer in this country would gladly take the case and stop that procedure by a simple injunction, because I know for a fact that the radio broadcaster is a public performer; and if the gentleman has a copyright on his poems he or his publisher can stop sending his poems over the air. I think the statement made here was a little bit wrong.

The CHAIRMAN. How many dozens or more selections have you written, outside of those that I have enumerated?

Mr. ROMBERG. So far I have written in the neighborhood of about 60 shows.

Music, gentlemen, is an international language, and if you talk in the language of music you may be understood everywhere civilization is. That is why, when you talk about a copyright in connection with

music, the problem gets very intricate and very serious, and more serious than in the spoken word, because the tastes of people in the literary world may be different; but when it comes to music, as you well know, without any translation, without any change, the same piece of music in its original form can develop all over the world. There is no step between. When you write in English literature, the words of it may be translated into French, or translated into German, or translated into any other language in the world, and the man in translating it can probably make alterations of his own. But when you have a piece of music, and the world takes it, it takes that piece of music just as it is and uses it all over the world.

Now, I am very much in favor of a copyright in the name of the author or composer. I think an author or composer should be entitled to take his composition and send it up to Washington and get his registration. I would like to make one suggestion to you, which I think is very important: Almost every author to-day writes on the typewriter, and all he has to do is put three carbons in, and as he writes his original on the typewriter he can at the same time create three carbon copies, one of which he can use to register his work in Washington.

When you write a piece of music, an operetta, it sometimes amounts to 200 or 250 pages of very closely written manuscript music. The fastest I ever could work in putting music down in one day was about 16 pages; so it will take quite a considerable time to put all of these notes down on paper in order to have the piano score from which you can produce that work.

The CHAIRMAN. What does a page like that cost you to make? Mr. ROMBERG. I mean, I am writing that myself; that is, the original. Now, gentlemen, in order to have a copy of that to send up to Washington, in order to get a registration, if you employ a man to copy it, he will charge you anywhere from 75 cents to $1 per page; so you can see there is quite a big amount to get a copy ready for Washington, if you consider a work consisting of 250 to 300 pages. I would like to suggest that this provision should be made for musician to go and get a photostatic copy of the original, and then that the photostatic copy should be sent up to Washington and be used in place of the manuscript for the registration purposes. Mr. KVALE. I think that is fair.

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The CHAIRMAN. I agree with Mr. Kvale that that is a fair suggestion.

Mr. ROMBERG. Second, I would like to say that away back in 1905, 1906, and 1907, gentlemen, along came the musical invention called the phonograph and first it was called the Edison phonograph; and the Victor came along and the player piano came along, and all of these gentlemen started to take music and put it on their records, and sell them. We had now law, until in 1908, when Congress saw fit to bring what we call the mechanical law into effect, and that is the law which says that once you give permission to the Victor Co., for instance, to make a record of your piece of music, the Victor Co. has to pay you 2 cents per record. But, simultaneously, if I give the Victor Co. a right to make a record of my piece of music, any other mechanical company in the country can take that piece of music and make a record, as long as they pay me 2 cents. In the first place, there are three interests involved: There is the literary

writer, or the composer, who wrote the music; and there is the publisher who published it, and so when you start to split up 2 cents between three people-and sometimes there is a producer that is in it, too-maybe four people, there is a very small fraction of a cent coming to one person. Second, gentlemen, there are lots of mechanical companies who get into the business, make records, and by the time you advise them that your music is made on their records, they are out of business or in bankruptcy, and you have no chance of collecting any further money. Every time Congress has really tried to impose a fee

The CHAIRMAN. Price fixing.

Mr. ROMBERG. Price fixing on a commodity, if I may say sowe are suffering now for the last 20 years-15 years under thisThe CHAIRMAN. You have been suffering 22 years.

Mr. ROMBERG. Twenty-two years under this law, and the only reason we have never been to the United States Supreme Court and tried to throw out the bill was for the simple fact that if the United States Supreme Court would have said that that mechanical bill was unconstitutional, then we would have been in the same position like we were in 1905 of having no bill, and they would have still taken our music and made records, and it would take some time to get a new bill through Congress.

The CHAIRMAN. And you would never have gotten 1 cent paid in royalties?

Mr. ROMBERG. No. May I say this: On the international copyright to-day, gentlemen, since 1925, the American music has predominated in every European country almost 60 per cent. We know for a fact that you can not go to any single European country where you would not find dance music, where they have jazz bands or dance. music, that they do not play our fox trots and our waltzes. That is a nice feature and, in a way, we like it, because this is the first time that has happened. We were flooded, before the war, with Viennese music, with English music-anything produced over there was accepted right away over here. When the break came during the war and this country, on account of being shut off from the central European powers, our compositions then came forward with what we call jazz music, and after the war, gentlemen, jazz started to sweep the world, so much so that we predominate to-day with music; and remember, that all that you have to do is to get a single piece written in America, and you can play it in every corner where there is music. But, as far as our productions are concerned to-day, we are very shaky. We have every day a product that goes to Central Europe, Hungary, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, HollandHolland does not give you any copyright any more.

Well now, the foot pinches on this side because. as I told you, their music is only used about 20 or 30 per cent here. You very seldom hear French music, or Hungarian music, or Rumanian music, but they are using our music over there. So, we are vitally interested in receiving our international copyright; because, if the relations are ever broken off, we will be the first sufferers, not them, because after all, they have a small market here in proportion to our market over there.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Romberg, as one of the most prolific writers of musical operettas and musical comedies and as one whose musical

work goes all over the world, do you think it would be advantageous to have an automatic copyright?

Mr. ROMBERG. In a way, I have been in favor of an automatic copyright-I have seen it work in Europe-it is all right for the European countries; but for this country, I am afraid, if you let the automatic copyright come in, somewhere in the line there must be a point where the work should be registered; because, especially in music, the loss would be so great that it would be very hard to

move

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, you are in favor, as a musical composer in this country, having it copyrighted and registered? Mr. ROMBERG. Well, I would not say I would like to destroy the

common law

The CHAIRMAN. The automatic copyright?

Mr. ROMBERG. I do not mean the common law

The CHAIRMAN. You mean the common-law right, the unpublished right?

Mr. ROMBERG. Yes, I would like to have that.

The CHAIRMAN. You have in this country the common-law right and the statutory right?

Mr. ROMBERG. I must say this, please, because I know about the facts. When you speak of Hungary you probably speak of 20 composers; when you speak of Czechoslovakia, you have 15 composers, and when you speak of Holland, you have three composers; and when you speak of Germany, you may run into the hundreds; England is small, and Canada-you can not find a Canadian composer; and when you speak of seven or eight hundred American composers against the few European composers, it is much easier for them over there to have an automatic copyright and straighten out their affairs, because they are in the minority, and there is more recognition to the standing of a composer; whereas, in this country, anybody can put his fingers on a piano and get some kind of a tune out, and get somebody to write it down, and he is a composer. The danger is pretty great to let the whole thing run wild without putting a stop to it, or get to the point where somebody has to prove, besides the chambermaid or chauffeur as witnesses, to say: "I wrote this and this is my copyright."

We are flooded to-day with lawsuits, some of them going to court, and they are very tiresome and cumbersome. I know of a suit to-day where a lady in California wrote one song in her whole life, and the song was written in 1912. She had that registered and copyrighted in Washington, a manuscript copy. She waited until 1932, until a song came out which was somewhat of an infringement of her own melody. Her song was never published but it lay as a manuscript in the Copyright Office here, and she never made any use of it, so nobody could really see it, but in 1932, in New York, a recognized composer came along, whose melody somehow resembles her melody, and she started a lawsuit for $750,000 against the publisher of that song. From 1912 to 1932 there were five songs in between which were similar to her melody, but none of these songs were hits, so she waited and waited until a song came along which was so good that it became a hit, and then she sued.

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