tant controversies manifested in the 1926 hearings were aired again and various proposals were presented for modification of the bill to resolve these controversies. After the hearings Representative Vestal introduced a revised bill, H.R. 12549, which was reported out by the House Committee on Patents (H. Rept. No. 1689, 71st Cong.) The report summarized the development of the bill as follows:

5

H.R. 6690, introduced in the House of Representatives during the first session of the Seventy-first Congress, is a general revision of the national copyright law. A similar bill was introduced in the year 1926 and has been before the Patents Committee ever since its introduction in that year; and there have been many hearings upon it before the committee, a large amount of testimony taken and a multitude of conferences between various interests held. The committee has successfully reconciled the differences. The context of the bill has been changed in various particulars from time to time to meet valid suggestions on the part of one interest or another and the present bill, H.R. 12549, combines the results of all hearings and all conferences.

It has been found that practically all the industries and all the authors have united in support of this revision. The authors, playwrights, screen writers, composers, and artists support it. The book publishers, the motion picture producers, the newspapers and magazines, the allied printing trades unions, the librarians, the majority of the theatrical managers, all of these have appeared at the hearings and have supported the principles of the bill. This general revision of the copyright law provides for

(1) Automatic copyright by which the copyright is conferred upon the author upon creation of his work, a right so limited by various provisions of the bill as to be made a privilege;

(2) Divisible copyright, which permits the assignee, grantee, or licensee to protect and enforce any right which he acquires from an author without the complications incident to the old law;

(3) International copyright, which enables American authors merely by complying with the provisions of this act, to secure copyright throughout all of the important countries of the world without further formalities. One member of the House committee, Representative Sirovich, filed a minority report in opposition to the provision for divisible copyright which the theatrical producers opposed. After the debate the bill was passed by the House on January 5, 1931.

6

When the bill as passed by the House was referred to the Senate Committee on Patents, further hearings were requested by a few interested groups that continued to oppose some features of the bill. The chief opponents at the Senate hearings in January 1931 were the radio broadcasters who were opposed to the fundamental principle of automatic copyright; the theatrical producers who opposed divisible copyright; and the manufacturers of coin-operated phonographs who objected to the elimination of the jukebox exemption. Amendments to specific provisions were also urged by representatives of libraries, scholars, and motion picture exhibitors, and by the Register of Copyrights and a few other witnesses of miscellaneous affiliation. The Senate committee reported the bill on February 23, 1931 (S. Rept. No. 1732, 71st Cong.) with a number of minor amendments. Debate in the Senate began on February 26 and continued intermittently through March 2; but further debate was blocked by a filibuster on

The bill was twice recommitted for technical reasons and reported out anew in H. Rept. Nos. 1898 and 2016, 71st Cong.

Congressional Record, vol. 72, pp. 11994, 11996, 12018, 12473, 12474; vol. 74, pp. 2006, 2019, 2022, 2037, 2080, 2081.

7 Meanwhile, on Jan. 21, 1931, President Hoover had transmitted to the Senate, for advice and consent to ratification, the 1908 Berlin Revision of the Berne Convention. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations voted to report it favorably but deferred further action pending approval of H.R. 12549.

Congressional Record, vol. 74, pp. 6102, 6234, 6237, 6244, 6449, 6458, 6463, 6470, 6474, 6480, 6486, 6640, 6654, 6706, 6709, 6712, 6717, 6721, 6722.

another matter and the session ended before the bill could be brought to a vote.

The Vestal bill, coming so near to enactment in the 71st Congress, marked the high tide of the efforts to revise the law for adherence to the Berne Convention. Up to that time the 1908 Berlin Revision of the Convention had been open to adherence with reservations which had been embodied in the bill. Thereafter only the 1928 Rome Revision of the Convention, which permitted no reservations, was open to adherence.

THE SIROVICH BILL

In the 72d Congress Representative Vestal reintroduced his bill as H.R. 139 and Senator Hébert introduced the Senate version as S. 176. Representative Vestal died shortly thereafter and no action was taken on these bills. Instead, the new chairman of the House Committee on Patents, Representative Sirovich, began anew. He called hearings to discuss the problems involved in copyright law revision without reference to any particular bill, apparently to acquaint the new members of the committee with the subject. All the interested groups were invited to present their views at the extended hearings held intermittently from February 1 to March 14, 1932. On March 10 Representative Sirovich introduced a bill, H.R. 10364, which was similar to the Vestal bill with respect to the fundamental changes in the law to conform with the Berne Convention, but differed from the Vestal bill on a number of other points.

Hearings on the bill were held on March 21, 24, and 25. On March 22, during the course of the hearings, Representative Sirovich introduced a revised bill, H.R. 10740. At the hearings, the bill was generally supported by representatives of authors, artists, book publishers, periodical publishers, and photographers. Various features of the bill were opposed by representatives of map publishers, scholars, motion picture producers and distributors, motion picture exhibitors, phonograph and record manufacturers, broadcasters, and ASCAP. After these hearings, on May 30, Representative Sirovich introduced another revised version of the bill as H.R. 10976, which the Committee on Patents reported out on April 5 (H. Rept. No. 1008, 72d Cong.); however, a few of the interested groups-particularly the map publishers, the motion picture exhibitors, and ASCAP indicated their objections to some of the last revisions and asked for further hearings. Representative Sirovich then introduced another version of the bill, H.R. 11948 on May 7, designed to meet some of these last objections, and supplemental hearings were held on May 12. At these hearings, the map publishers and motion picture exhibitors indicated their satisfaction with the bill as revised, but the motion picture producers and distributors objected to the new revisions, and ASCAP was still opposed to some features of the bill.

After these hearings, on May 16, Representative Sirovich once more revised his bill as H.R. 12094, which was reported out of the committee on May 18 (H. Rept. No. 1361, 72d Cong.), and a special order was requested (H. Res. 229). In the ensuing debate on the order Representative Lanham, who had been the ranking minority member of the Committee on Patents during Representative Vestal's chairmanship, attacked the Sirovich bill as a hasty and ill-considered measure, and argued that the committee should have taken up the

Vestal bill which represented 8 years of work "to reconcile and harmonize the divergent interests affected by copyright legislation, " and which the House had passed at the preceding session. After the debate the bill was recommitted to the committee.

On June 2, 1932, Representative Sirovich introduced a fifth version of his bill as H.R. 12425, but no further action was taken in the 72d Congress.

THE DUFFY BILL

In the 73d Congress a movement was started to return to the objective that had first prompted the revision efforts 10 years earlier in the 67th Congress, namely, revision of the law only in those respects necessary for adherence to the Berne Convention. A bill for that purpose was introduced in 1933 by Representative Luce as H.R. 5853 and by Senator Cutting as S. 1928. On February 19, 1934, President Roosevelt transmitted to the Senate, for its advice and consent to adherence, the Berne Convention as revised at Rome in 1928 (Ex. E, 73d Cong.). On March 28 and on May 28 and 29, 1934, hearings were held before a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Cutting bill and the convention. At the hearings adherence to the convention was favored by representatives of the State and Commerce Departments and the Copyright Office, and by representatives of authors, book publishers, educators, and map publishers, but was opposed by representatives of the motion picture producers, motion picture exhibitors, radio broadcasters, and periodical publishers. Changes in the Cutting bill were urged by the printing trades unions, by some of the proponents of adherence (particularly the book and map publishers), and by the various opponents of adherence; and a number of the witnesses urged that the efforts to revise the law completely be renewed along the lines of the earlier Perkins, Vestal, or Sirovich bills.

In explanation of the opposition to adherence to the Berne Convention by groups that had formerly favored adherence, it should be noted that the Berne Convention had previously permitted adherence with reservations, which was no longer possible, and that the 1928 Rome Revision of the Convention had added certain new features which some of the groups found unacceptable.

After the hearings on the Cutting bill, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, adopting a suggestion made at the hearings, requested the State Department to organize an informal interdepartmental committee to confer with the various interests in an endeavor to reconcile their divergent viewpoints as far as possible. This committee consisted of two representatives of the State Department, two of the Copyright Office, and one of the Commerce Department. The committee held a series of conferences with representatives of the various interests that had appeared at the hearings, drafted a bill which was circulated among the different interests for comment, and then prepared a revised draft which was introduced by Senator Duffy in the 74th Congress on March 13, 1935, as S. 2465.

On April 18, 1935, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations reported favorably on adherence to the Berne Convention (Ex. Rept.

• Congressional Record, vol. 75, pp. 11065-11066.

No. 4, 74th Cong.), and on April 19 the Senate voted to ratify the Convention; but this vote was reconsidered on motion by Senator Duffy on April 22 and the Convention was put back on the Executive Calendar by unanimous consent to await action on the Duffy bill.

On June 17, 1935, Senator Duffy introduced a revised version of his bill as S. 3047,10 and this bill was reported favorably by the Senate Committee on Patents (S. Rept. No. 896, 74th Cong.). During the debate in the Senate, provisions known as the "Vandenberg amendment" were added to the bill to provide copyright protection for industrial designs; and another amendment restored the requirement of domestic manufacture for foreign works, which would apparently have precluded adherence to the Berne Convention. On August 7, 1935, in the closing days of the 1st session of the 74th Congress, the Senate passed the bill with these amendments.

In the second session on January 27, 1936, Representative Daly introduced H.R. 10632, which was similar to the Duffy bill as passed by the Senate, plus additional new provisions to give performing artists copyright in their recorded renditions of music. On February 24, 1936, Representative Sirovich introduced a new bill, H.R. 11420, making a number of revisions in the law but abandoning some of the changes necessary for adherence to the Berne Convention, and this bill, too, included new provisions for the copyright protection of performing artists.

Extensive hearings on the Duffy, Daly, and Sirovich bills were held before the House committee on 27 days during the period of February 25 to April 15, 1936. The wide variety of controversial issues and divergent views presented at previous hearings on copyright revision bills was now complicated further by the interjection of the new issues involved in the two broad proposals to provide copyright protection for industrial designs and for recorded renditions of music. A number of new groups were now brought into the hearings and the conflicts of interest were multiplied.

Taking the Duffy bill alone without the Vandenberg amendment, it was generally favored at the hearings by representatives of the State Department, broadcasters, hotel owners, libraries, periodical publishers, jukebox manufacturers, and motion picture exhibitors. Some of the features of the Duffy bill (excluding the Vandenberg amendment) were opposed by representatives of the authors, composers, music publishers, phonograph record manufacturers, motion picture producers, book publishers, periodical publishers, and map publishers. It became apparent at the hearings that additional groups formerly advocating adherence to the Berne Convention-notably some of the author, composer, and publisher groups-had now become indifferent or opposed to adherence.

At these same hearings, representatives of the performing artists and the phonograph record manufacturers urged enactment of the provisions in the Daly and Sirovich bills to give copyright protection to recorded renditions of music, while the radio broadcasters opposed

No report of hearings on the original Duffy bill, S. 2465, has been found. Apparently the Committee on Patents held informal conferences on that bill before its revision as S. 3047. In the Congressional Record, vol. 79, p. 12188, Senator Duffy stated that the Committee on Patents had "held hearings and had conferences" on S. 2465. A companion bill to S. 3047 was also introduced in the House on June 19, 1935, by Representative Bloom as H.R. 8557.

those provisions and the other groups were generally noncommittal on this issue. The Vandenberg amendment in the Duffy bill was favored by representatives of the designers and of the manufacturers of silk and rayon fabrics, leather, pottery, furniture, upholstery and drapery fabrics, and women's apparel; and was opposed by representatives of the railroads, the manufacturers of automobiles, machine parts, glass containers, and popular price dresses, groups of retail merchants, and the Farm Bureau Federation.

After the hearings, a special subcommittee of the House Committee on Patents held several meetings, but the groups concerned showed little interest and no further action was taken in the 74th Congress.

The 1936 hearings were the last held on bills for general revision of the law. Senator Duffy reintroduced his bill in the 75th Congress as S. 7 and companion bills were introduced in the House by Representative Moser (H.R. 2695) and Representative Bloom (H.R. 3004). Representative Daly also introduced a somewhat modified version of his bill as H.R. 5275, and a companion bill was introduced by Senator Guffey as S. 2240. No action was taken on any of these bills. Likewise, no action was taken on similar bills introduced in the 76th Congress (H.R. 926 and 4871 by Representative Daly, and H. R. 6160 and 9703 by Representative McGranery).

THE SHOTWELL BILL

The last chapter in the attempts to revise the copyright law to conform with the Berne Convention was an undertaking by the National Committee of the United States of America on International Intellectual Cooperation, one of several such committees organized in various parts of the world in the early 1920's to collaborate with the Organization on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations. In 1938 this national committee, of which Prof. James T. Shotwell of Columbia University was then chairman, activated a subsidiary Committee for the Study of Copyright to promote international copyright relations. Professor Shotwell and later Dr. Waldo G. Leland, director of the American Council of Learned Societies, acted as chairman of this latter committee, and Dr. Edith T. Ware served as its executive secretary. In 1938 the Committee for the Study of Copyright, commonly known as the Shotwell committee, inaugurated a series of conferences with the various groups concerned with copyright in an effort to work out revisions of the law looking toward adherence to the Berne Convention and the establishment of a better basis for a future Pan American Copyright Convention. Participating in these conferences were representatives of authors, publishers, the printing trades, motion picture producers, radio broadcasters, record manufacturers, libraries, and scholars. The Shotwell committee secured from each group a statement of the changes it desired in the law, circulated these statements among the various groups for comment, and then designated a number of smaller committees to attempt to reconcile the major conflicts. These conferences continued until the latter part of 1939 when the Shotwell committee drafted a bill for a complete revision of the law. The various groups agreed that the bill might be introduced, but a number of them indicated their in