held, and the conclusion has been reached that a general revision of the law should now be undertaken.

In the course of the discussion three fundamental elements have been developed; the automatic copyright, by which we mean the copyright vests in a work upon its creation; the divisible copyright, which means an author may part with some of his rights without risk of losing all the rest; and, finally, international copyright through adherence to the international copyright union.

That completes the statement, so far as the history of the copyright is concerned.

Now, Mr. Chairman, possibly I might outline for you the work of the office, briefly.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you want to supplement these three contentions that have come up: The principle of automatic copyright, divisibility, and the international union?

Mr. BROWN. Not at this time.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. You prefer to sum up at the end.

Mr. BROWN. The copyright office is an office of record only. It has no judicial functions. The examination of an application does not require search to prove originality or priority. It is an office of 135 clerks, subdivided into eight sections. The examination of an application is to determine that the requirements of the law, so far as the statements are complied with, and that the requirements of the affidavit are met as to the manufacture of books. There are some four or five hundred applications daily. The applications which are faulty are put aside for correspondence.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you talking about books now or dramatic productions?

Mr. BROWN. I am talking of all classes, the eight or nine classes of copyright. A certificate is issued promptly after the application is passed for copyright. The entries are recorded in permanent record books of the office. This occupies some 20 or 25 recorders constantly. Their work also includes the recording of assignments. The recording of assignments was formerly done by copying with pen. It is now done by photostatic copies. The assignments are multiplying very fast. Last year they numbered between two and three thousand assignments.

The CHAIRMAN. Where the author completely assigns his property to some one else?

Mr. BROWN. Yes. These assignments are all recorded in our office. Finally the copyright is catalogued and printed in the catalogue of copyright entries, and the cards upon which it is catalogued are then filed in the general index, which now numbers some 7,000,000 cards. The catalogue is printed at periodic intervals, usually each month, and in an edition of 1,000 copies. The annual volumes number some sixteen or seventeen hundred pages.

That, briefly, is the work of the office.

The present law has worked on the whole fairly well. To call it archaic is somewhat of an exaggeration, but there are parts of it that need to be changed.

Now, what are the provisions of the law that need changing from the standpoint of the administration of the office? First, I think there should be a uniform fee for registration. The present fee is

$2 for each entry of a published work, including the certificate; $1 for photographs, where no certificate is required; $1 for all unpub. lished works. The public never succeeds in remembering this distinction and is constantly sending the wrong remittance, requiring either refund or demand for more on the part of the office.

So far as the last price is concerned, $1 for unpublished works, it may be called inadequate if, as the office always claims, the fee is merely a nominal payment for the actual clerical service rendered. The clerical service rendered is no less in the case of unpublished work than for a published work, and if and when the number of unpublished works surpasses the other, then the receipts of the office are liable to drop off. It seems to me that there should be a uniform fee of $2 for all registrations.

Mr. DIES. You spoke of the expense. If you had a uniform fee of $2, do you think that would be sufficient?

Mr. BROWN. I think so.

The CHAIRMAN. Is your department running under a deficit now? Mr. BROWN. No; our department is running at a profit. It is turning in an excess to the Treasury, but the office is constantly growing, and the additional requirements from time to time should be met by the returns in fees.

Then, I wish to say that the required statements of the affidavits should be simplified. The public finds it very troublesome to file this affidavit correctly. The affidavit at the present time is required only for one class, books. If the requirement for affidavits is extended to every form of work printed in sheet form as was proposed in the Vestal bill, I think the public will be very much exasperated by the

annoyance.

The CHAIRMAN. You are not in favor of having a uniform affidavit?

Mr. BROWN. I think not, sir. I do not see the requirement for it, and I do not see the advantage of it. The affidavit is now filed in the case of books and has been for 20 years, and very little use has been made of it.

Mr. DIES. What sort of affidavit is that in the case of books? Is it a long affidavit?

Mr. BROWN. No; it is an affidavit with perhaps 8 or 10 questions to be filled out, and the purpose of it is to swear that the book was printed and manufactured in this country.

The CHAIRMAN. You do not have any affidavit in the case of a dramatic production, do you?

Mr. BROWN. Not at present. That would have to come, I suppose, if the provision in the Vestal bill was retained.

The CHAIRMAN. You are opposed to that?

Mr. BROWN. Yes. Then I think the conditions accompanying the application for ad interim copyrights for an English book should be liberalized if the ad interim copyright is continued. The ad interim copyright, as it is called, is a provision for a brief term of protection for the English edition prior to the bringing out of the American edition. The time limitation is one source of difficulty, and the doubt as to whether the copyright is lost for the American edition after the lapse of the four months' period provided in the ad interim ought to be cleared up.

Fourth, I think the renewal requirements are a source of much difficulty with publishers and claimants in filing their applications. The whole renewal provision should be done away with, by providing only one term, long enough, I think, to include the present renewal

The CHAIRMAN. What would be your recommendation for a copyright on a book by an author? Are you in favor of the 28 and 28, or the 56 years?

Mr. BROWN. I am in favor of the elimination of the renewal, making the original term whatever the committee decides.

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to get your opinion on that, Mr. Brown.

Mr. BROWN. I think it would be advantageous to adopt a general term such as is provided in other countries, and make it for the life of the author and 50 years thereafter.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, it is your opinion that when an individual writes a book that copyright should be in his name as long as he lives and for how many years thereafter?

Mr. BROWN. And for 50 years.

The CHAIRMAN. For 50 years thereafter?

Mr. BROWN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. So that if a man writes a book, for instance, a poetic sentiment like Thanatopsis, at the age of 18, and if he lives to be 80, he has that copyright protection for a period of 62 years, and then for 50 years thereafter?

Mr. BROWN. That is, of course, an extreme term. I think it has been calculated that it would run, on the average, around 75, 76, or 77 years.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask you a question on something I am vitally interested in, and which we expect to bring in in a bill. We want to protect the American author so far as his works are concerned in Europe, we want to protect the American dramatist so far as his work is concerned in Europe; they are being plagiarized, and the American author and the American composer and dramatist has to register his copyright in 40 different countries in Europe to protect himself. Let us say we enter into an agreement on the basis of the Roman convention, in which we recognize and conform our laws to their conventions, with this material understanding: That when automatic registration, which they have in many parts of Europe, is accepted by our Government the right to sue is contingent upon the registration of their works within the United States copyright department; that would give protection to American authors as well as to European authors-is that right?

Mr. BROWN. Well, the condition of the American author's copyright in other countries would be governed by the laws of that country.

The CHAIRMAN. But I mean if they entered into the provisions of the Roman convention, which, as I understand it, is in effect in 39 countries in Europe.

Mr. BROWN. Yes.

Mr. DIES. We are not a member?

Mr. BROWN. We are not a member; no.

Mr. DIES. Has there been any effort to make us a member?

Mr. BROWN. It has been proposed and the proposal was included in the Vestal bill.

The CHAIRMAN. That was on the Berne convention?

Mr. BROWN. Yes; the Berne convention.

The CHAIRMAN. We can not join the Berne convention any morethat has passed. The only convention that the Senate of the United States can make a treaty with is on the basis of the Roman convention?

Mr. BROWN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. As I understand, there were three conventions; one was held in 1886, as you stated, called the Berne convention? Mr. BROWN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Another held in 1908 which was called the Berlin convention?

Mr. BROWN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And the third convention, held in Rome, about 1926

Mr. BROWN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Which is the Roman convention?

Mr. BROWN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And this Roman convention is an understanding amongst 39 different nations of Europe, in which it recites the relationship of each country, so far as copyright is concerned?

Mr. BROWN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And if we join this Roman convention we would have to perfect our copyright law and our treaty relationship to coincide with their theory, and I feel that that could be done, providing we make registration the only medium by which money could be collected on the basis of a suit; in other words, you have automatic copyright in Germany, and the Roman convention so regards it. We can say: "We will give you automatic copyright here in America, but you can not sue and collect unless it has been registered with the register of copyrights in the Congressional Library.'

Mr. BROWN. Mr. Chairman, that would, of course, involve a reservation in the Roman convention, because the Roman convention eliminates the author from any formalities, any requirements. The CHAIRMAN. Exactly.

Mr. BROWN. That, of course, is understood.

Mr. DIES. You made the statement that you are opposed to the Vestal copyright bill, but you did not give us your reasons. Will you kindly state them?

The CHAIRMAN. He did not state he was against the Vestal copyright bill. Are there any questions any member of the committee would like to ask Mr. Brown. If not, let me thank you, Mr. Brown, for appearing before our committee and giving us your views.

Richard C. De Wolf, for many years the chief law clerk of the Copyright Office, now acting assistant register of copyrights-author of An Outline of Copyright Law. Mr. De Wolf has been lecturer in copyright law at the American University and the Washington College of Law in this city.

STATEMENT OF RICHARD C. DE WOLF, ACTING ASSISTANT REGISTRY OF COYPRIGHTS

Mr. DE WOLF. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, Mr. Brown has covered the subject of copyright law generally, giving you a history of it. All I want to do is expand a little some of the features of his talk and, perhaps, dwell on some of the more legal aspects of the subject.

First, as to the nature of the right itself. It was pointed out in hearings before the Senate committee that there are two schools of thought in relation to the nature of copyright, one holding that it is a natural right of the author, the other holding that it is purely a statutory right granted, so to speak, on the balance of convenience. between the author and the public.

The first school of thought is that which is expressed in European laws generally, and the second is that which the United States so far has commonly adhered to. It seems probable that when the Constitution was framed the people who drafted the section of the Constitution which has been quoted to you had very strongly presented to their minds the author's natural right. It is recited in the preambles to the various State enactments to which Mr. Brown has referred that no property is more peculiarly a man's own than the product of his brain, and that it is consistent with justice and equity that laws should be enacted to protect this property. The commonlaw rights had been recognized in England for 100 years prior to that time, and since these statutes were enacted very shortly before the Constitution, it seems probable, as I say, that the framers of the Constitution had in mind the natural property right of the author, but the constitutional provision, as has been quoted to you, that Congress should have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing to authors and inventors the right to their respective writings and discoveries, was adopted, and the question arose as to what was the meaning of this word "secure."

The earlier colonial enactments had spoken of securing authors in their rights, indicating the feeling that they already had those rights, and it was simply a case of legislating to protect them more completely, and the question of the meaning of the word "secure" in the constitutional provision came before the United States Supreme Court in 1834 in the case of Wheaton v. Peters, and the court held at that time, by a 4 to 2 decision, one judge being absent, that the word "secure as used in the Constitution did not mean the confirmation of a previously existing right, but meant the granting of a new right; that is, as to a published work. It was recognized and understood that the common law right existed in the various unpublished writings of an author, but that when the Constitution said that the rights of authors should be "secured," the meaning was that this was granting a new right. It was creating a statutory right..

Since that time, and since the decision in Wheaton v. Peters, the idea seems to be quite firmly embedded in our law that Congress in copyright enactments is according a right which would not exist. without such enactments, so far as a published work is concerned, and accordingly Congress has the right to limit or restrict this right