EXHIBIT G-Table of articles deposited during 1913-14, 1914-15, and NOTE. For detailed statement of articles deposited during fiscal years 1897-8 to 191213 see Annual Report of Register of Copyrights for 1914-15. Addendum to the Report of the Register of Copyrights, 1915–16 CONTENTS Copyright bills and reports, Sixty-fourth Congress, first session: H. R. act No. 8356; passed the House of Representatives April 3, and referred to Senate Committee on Patents April 4, 1916; page 203. H. R. Report No. 265, to accompany H. R. 8356; February 26, 1916; page 204. H. R. Report No. 640, to accompany H. R. 13981; May 5, 1916; H. R. bill No. 14226; introduced by Hon. William D. Stephens H. R. Act No. [64th Cong., 1st sess. H. R. 8356. In the Senate of the United States. 8356 AN ACT To amend sections twenty-eight and thirty of an Act entitled "An act to Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That sections twenty-eight and thirty of the act entitled "An act to amend and consolidate the acts respecting copyright," approved March fourth, nineteen hundred and nine, be amended to read as follows: "SEC. 28. That any person who willfully and for profit shall infringe any copyright in any work protected under the copyright laws of the United States, or who shall knowingly and willfully aid or abet such infringement, 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: Provided, however, That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to prevent the performance of religious or secular works, such as oratorios, cantatas, masses, or octavo choruses by public schools, church choirs or vocal societies, rented, borrowed, or obtained from some public library, public school, church choir, school choir, or vocal society, provided the performance is given for charitable or educational purposes and not for profit. "SEC. 30. That the importation into the United States of any article bearing a false notice of copyright when there is no existing copy right thereon in the United States, or of any infringing copies, matter, or material of any work copyrighted in the United States, is prohibited." Passed the House of Representatives April 3, 1916. Attest: SOUTH TRIMBLE, Clerk. H. R. Report [64th Cong., 1st sess. House of Representatives. Report No. 265.] No. 265 AMENDMENT OF LAWS RELATING TO COPYRIGHTS FEBRUARY 26, 1916.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed Mr. MORRISON, from the Committee on Patents, submitted the following report (to accompany H. R. 8356). The Committee on Patents, to whom was referred House bill 8356, respectfully report that they have had the same under consideration and recommend that the bill be amended and that the bill as amended do pass. In line 3 of page 2 of the printed bill the word "oratorios," as found in the existing statute, is spelled "oratories." It was not the purpose of the author of the bill or of the committee to make any change in the present statute other than the ones included in the printed bill as hereinafter set forth. The change in the spelling of the word referred to is the result of inadvertence either by the author or at the Government Printing Office. The committee, therefore, recommend that the word "oratories" in the printed bill be stricken out and the word "oratorios" be inserted in lieu thereof. The bill proposes to amend sections 28 and 30 of the existing copyright statute. The bill proposes to amend section 28 to read as follows: SEC. 28. That any person who willfully and for profit shall infringe any copyright in any work protected under the copyright laws of the United States, or who shall knowingly and willfully aid or abet such infringement, 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: Provided, however, That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to prevent the performance of religious or secular works, such as oratorios, cantatas, masses, or octavo choruses by public schools, church choirs, or vocal societies, rented, borrowed, or obtained from some public library, public school, church choir, school choir, or vocal society, provided the performance is given for charitable or educational purposes and not for profit. The section as proposed is in the identical language of the corresponding section of the present law, except the typographical error above referred to and except the language italicized as hereinabove printed. The effect of the proposed amendment to section 28 will be to strike out of the existing statute the words "secured by this act," and inserting in lieu thereof the words “in any work protected under the copyright laws of the United States." When the present copyright statute was reported to this House by Hon. Frank Currier, the then chairman of the Committee on Patents, on February 22, 1909, Mr. Currier submitted to the House a most elaborate and valuable statement of the purpose of the committee as to each section and subdivision of the act as submitted. It was the manifest intention of the committee that the words proposed to be stricken out, "secured by this act," should have the effect to bring under section 28 all copyrights thereafter protected by the copyright laws of the United States, whether such protection had been procured prior to the enactment of the new statute or would be procured thereafter and thereunder. On page 16 of the report of the committee the following language was used in assigning the reason why, in the opinion of the committee, the language as then proposed in section 28 should be adopted by the Congress. As far as the report relates to the language of the statute affected by the proposed amendment, it was in the following language: Section 28 provides that a willful infringement for profit of a copyright shall be a misdemeanor. Such an infringement when affecting a dramatic work or musical composition is a misdemeanor under existing law and punishable by imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, with no alternative sentence. This section, as we have it in the bill, applies to all copyrights, but materially modifies the sentence which may be imposed by adding an alternative sentence, as follows: "Or by a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $1,000, or both, in the discretion of the court." It is evident that the Committee on Patents used the words "secured by this act" in the same sense in which in section 25 they used the words "protected under the copyright laws of the United States" upon the assumption that after the enactment of the present statute all rights protected under the copyright laws of the United States would be "secured by this act." At a later time the courts were called upon to construe the words “secured by this act." The fact that the committee had used substantially different phraseology in the opening sentence of section 25 relating to civil remedies and the opening sentence of section 28 relating to criminal proceedings doubtless led the court to infer that the Congress intended section 28 to be given a more limited scope than section 25. In the opening sentence of section 23 the words "secured by this act" are used in contradistinction to the words "subsisting in any work at the time when this act goes into effect." This fact may also have influenced the decision of the court. At any rate, the courts have held that the words "secured by this act," as used in section 28, apply to rights originally procured under this act and do not include rights subsisting in any work at the time when this act went into effect. 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 had 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 infringements of copyrights. The proposed amendment is intended to accomplish what the Committee on Patents manifestly intended to accomplish by the language in section 28. It will simplify the work of the Department of Justice in its enforcement of the copyright laws. The pending bill proposes to amend section 30 to read as follows: SEC. 30. That the importation into the United States of any article bearing a false notice of copyright when there is no existing copyright thereon in the United States, or of any infringing copies, matter, or material of any work copyrighted in the United States, is prohibited. The proposed section is in the identical language of the corresponding section of the present law, except as to the words printed in italic. The effect of the proposed amendment is to strike out of the present statute the words "piratical copies” and to insert in lieu thereof the words "infringing copies, matter, or material.” Section 30 is intended to give to the holders of rights protected under the copyright laws of the United States additional protection by prohibiting the importation of articles bearing false notice of copyright or infringing publications of copyrighted works. Prior sections of the act refer to copyrighted works and also to the materials of such works whether translated into other languages, recast into other versions, or otherwise modified, as in the dramatizing of a nondramatic work or the novelizing of a dramatic work or the recasting of it into some other literary form. The practical importance of section 30 is to authorize the officers of the customhouse to retain possession of works alleged to be infringing, until the rights of the parties can be determined. It has been held, however, that the language of the section, "piratical copies," includes only textual reproductions, and does not include infringing matter or material or the original work in any form other than that of a textual reproduction. This construction, of which the committee make no criticism, makes section 30 ineffectual to protect the rights of the parties in a large proportion of the cases that arise. It is the opinion of the committee that the protection afforded by section 30 should be as large as the rights granted and the protection afforded by the remaining sections of the bill. |