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Bulletins

Copyright vention, 1910

con

Catalogue of

1915

ments (Office of the Public Printer, Washington, D. C.), and all subscriptions must be for the complete year for each part desired.

A new edition of Bulletin No. 14, containing the copyright law in force, was called for during the year, and was printed (60 pp. 8°) with the following explanatory matter added: (1) The Pan-American Copyright Convention, signed at Buenos Aires in 1910, and proclaimed by the President on July 13, 1914; (2) the British Order in Council dated February 3, 1915, providing that the provisions of the British Copyright Act of 1911 shall apply to works by authors who are citizens of the United States "in like manner as if the authors had been British subjects," and that residence of such authors in the United States shall be held equivalent to residence in Great Britain; (3) the Proclamation by the President of January 1, 1915, extending to British subjects the benefits of section 1 (e) of the Copyright Act of 1909.

The text of the Fourth International American Convention on Literary and Artistic Copyright, proclaimed July 13, 1914, was printed as Information Circular No. 55. (6 pp. 8°.)

The printing of the Catalogue of Copyright Dramas was Dramas, 1870- begun on September 22, 1915, and proceeded very slowly until February 7, 1916, when 672 pages had been printed, including 13,887 titles, out of a total of about 60,000 dramas registered between July 8, 1870, and December 31, 1915.

SUMMARY OF COPYRIGHT BUSINESS

Summary of Balance on hand July 1, 1915.

$9, 257.35

copyright business Gross receipts July 1, 1915, to June 30, 1916.. 115, 663. 42

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1,649,776.15 1, 383. 27

Total fees earned and paid into the Treasury during the 19

years from July 1, 1897, to June 30, 1916.. Total unfinished business for 19 years.

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The greater part of the business of the Copyright Office is Correspondence done by correspondence. The total letters and parcels received during the fiscal year numbered 146,853, while the letters, parcels, etc., dispatched numbered 150,353. Letters received transmitting remittances numbered 44,141, including money orders to the number of 30,118. During the last 19 fiscal years the money orders received numbered more than half a million (505,900).

CONDITION OF COPYRIGHT OFFICE WORK

(a) Current work

current work

At this date (July 10, 1916) the remittances received up Condition of to the third mail of the day have been recorded. The account books of the bookkeeping division are written up and posted to June 30, and the accounts rendered to the Treasury Department are settled up to and including the month of June, while earned fees to June 30, inclusive, have been paid into the Treasury.

64394°-16-13

Deposits prior to July 1, 1897

Branch office at San Francisco

All copyright applications received up to and including June 30 have been passed upon and refunds made. The unfinished business amounted on June 30, 1916, to $1,383.27. Of this, however, a large sum represented business for the fiscal year, held awaiting answers to letters from the Copyright Office in regard to informalities, etc.

At the close of business on July 10, 1916, of the works deposited for copyright registration up to and including June 30 all had been recorded. There remained to be indexed: Class A, Books, 836; Class E, Music, 342; Class I, Technical Drawings, 46.

(b) Deposits received prior to July 1, 1897

During the fiscal year 1915-16 about 2,150 articles received prior to July 1, 1897, were handled in the work of crediting such matter to the proper entries. Of these articles, 1,037 pieces (comprising 414 pamphlets and leaflets, 599 periodical contributions, and 24 miscellaneous articles) were credited to their respective entries and properly filed. Entries were found for 900 more pamphlets, etc., and they have been arranged for crediting. Careful search was made in the case of about 200 other pamphlets, etc., but no corresponding entries were found. In addition, about 18,657 printed titles filed prior to July 8, 1870, have been arranged by classes (Books, Music, Prints, Labels, etc.) to facilitate examination. The examination of this old material becomes proportionately slow and its identification more difficult as the remaining material presents fewer clues under which search can be made for possible entries. Meantime the pressure of the current copyright business has been so great as to oblige the transfer, from time to time, of the clerks from work upon the old unfinished material to the current work.

(c) Branch Copyright Office at San Francisco

The appropriation of $30,000, made in the sundry civil appropriation act for the fiscal year 1915, for the Copyright and Patent Branch Office at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, was continued and made available for

expenditure during the first half of the fiscal year 1916, by an item to that effect in the sundry civil appropriation act for the fiscal year 1916. This branch office went out of existence on December 4, 1915, with the closing of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. It had been established when the exposition was opened under authority given by the act approved September 18, 1913, with a view to register copyright proprietorship in behalf of foreign exhibitors at the exposition. Owing to the European war, the expected demand for copyright registration was not made, and only four certificates of copyright proprietorship were issued under the provisions of the act cited. The actual expenditures finally incurred upon the part of the Copyright Office only amounted to a total of $7.25. The cost involved in maintaining the branch office, however, was borne by the Patent Office, whose representative at San Francisco, under arrangements made with the Commissioner of Patents, courteously received and forwarded such applications and correspondence which it was found related to copyright protection rather than to patent rights. The unexpended balance of the Library's share of the appropriation of March 4, 1914, namely $14,992.75, reverted to the Treasury of the United States on December 31, 1915, in accordance with the provision of the sundry civil appropriation act for 1915-16, referred to above.

Mr. Crisfield's appointment as Assistant Register

On May 18, 1916, Mr. Arthur Crisfield was appointed Assistant RegisAssistant Register of Copyrights.

COPYRIGHT LEGISLATION AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT

RELATIONS

I. Legislation.

No new copyright legislation was finally enacted during the fiscal year just closed, but two amendatory acts were passed by the House of Representatives and now await action by the Senate.

ter

The first of these bills (H. R. 8356) was originally introduced by Hon. Martin A. Morrison, chairman of the House R. 8356

House Act H.

H. R. report Committee on Patents, on January 8, 1916,1 and was favorno. 265 ably reported to the House on February 26.2 The purpose of the bill is explained at length in the report submitted by the House Committee on Patents. In section 25 of the Copyright Act of 1909, providing remedies in the case of infringement, the language used is "that if any person shall infringe the copyright in any work protected under the copyright laws of the United States such person shall be liable" to an injunction and the payment of damages. In section 28, however, the language used is "that any person who willfully and for profit shall infringe any copyright secured by this act * * * shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment for not exceeding one year or by a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $1,000, or both, in the discretion of the court." The result of this change from the words "shall infringe the copyright in any work protected under the copyright laws of the United States" in section 25, to "shall infringe any copyright secured by this Act," in section 28, has resulted in decisions by the courts holding that the words "secured by this act," as used in section 28, apply only to rights originally procured under the act of March 4, 1909, and do not include rights subsisting in any work at the time when that act went into effect.

The House committee report says:

As a result the penalty provided in section 28, as so construed, applies only to infringements of copyrights originally procured under the present act. The courts have held that the penalty for infringements of rights subsisting at the time when the present statute went into effect, and continued under and protected by the present law, is the penalty provided in the statute that was in force at the time of the enactment of the present law, and which has been for the most part superseded by the present law. This construction of section 28 adds greatly to the difficulty of preparing indictments based upon infringe

1 1916 (Jan. 8). A bill to amend sections 28 and 30 of an act entitled "An act to amend and consolidate the acts respecting copyright," approved Mar. 4, 1909. Presented by Mr. Morrison. H. R. bill No. 8356, 64th Cong., 1st sess. Printed, 2 pp. 4°. [Referred to the Committee on Patents.]

2 1916 (Feb. 26). Amendment of laws relating to copyrights. Mr. Morrison, from the Committee on Patents, submitted the following report (to accompany H. R. 8356). 64th Cong., 1st sess., H. R. Report No. 265. Printed, 3 pp. 8°.

1916 (Feb. 26). A bill to amend sections 28 and 30 of an act entitled "An act to amend and consolidate the acts respecting copyright," approved Mar. 4, 1909. Reported with an amendment; referred to the House Calendar. H. R. bill 8356. (H. R. Report No. 265.) Printed, 2 pp. 4°.

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