COPYRIGHTS THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 1939 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON PATENTS, Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a. m., Hon. [H. R. 4433, 76th Cong., 1st sess.] A BILL To amend sections 12, 13, and 29 of the Copyright Act of March 4, 1909, and further to secure the Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of "SEC. 12. That after copyright has been secured by publication of the work "No action or proceeding shall be maintained for any loss or damage suffered SEC. 2. Section 13 of the Copyright Act of March 4, 1909, as amended, is "SEC. 13. The register of copyrights may at any time following publication of 1 months from any outlying territorial possession of the United States or from any foreign country, the proprietor of the copyright shall be liable to a fine of $100 and to pay to the Library of Congress twice the amount of the retail price of the best edition of the work, and the copyright shall become void." SEC. 3. Section 29 of the Copyright Act of March 4, 1909, as amended, is amended by adding the following at the end of said section 29: "Any person who, after having secured a copyright in a work by publication with notice in accordance with the terms of section 9 of this Act, or any person in whom the title in such copyright shall subsequently vest by assignment or otherwise who, prior to the expiration of six calendar months following the publication of such work, shall fail to deposit the copies or copy as provided in section 12, accompanied by an application for registration of claim of copyright in such work in the Copyright Office or in the mail addressed to the Register of Copyrights, Washington, District of Columbia, shall on the expiration of the said period of six calendar months forfeit his copyright, and the copyright shall then and there become void; and such person shall be liable to a fine of $100 and to pay to the Library of Congress twice the amount of the retail price of the best edition of the work then published." SEC. 4. Where, under the provisions of sections 12 and 29 of the Copyright Act of March 4, 1909, as amended by this Act, any duty of deposit of copies and application for registration, or any disability, liability, fine, or loss of copyright resulting from failure to perform such duty is made to depend upon the lapse of any period of time, such period shall not include any period prior to the date of the enactment of this Act; but where a work has been published with copyright notice as provided in section 9 of the said Act of March 4, 1909, but has not been deposited or registered prior to the date of the enactment of this Act, the date upon which the thirty- or sixty-day period, as the case may be, provided in section 12 as amended by this Act, and the six months' period provided in section 29 as amended by this Act, begins to run, shall be the date of the enactment of this Act. Nothing in the amendments made by this Act to section 13 of the Act of March 4, 1909, shall be construed to shorten the periods specified in said section 13 if demand for the deposit of copies has been made prior to the date of enactment of this Act. Nothing in the amendments made by this Act shall affect causes of action for infringement of copyright pending in courts of the United States at the date of enactment of this Act. Dr. SIROVICH. The committee will come to order. Mr. Lanham, you being chairman of the subcommittee, the meeting is turned over to you. Mr. LANHAM. We have met, gentlemen, for consideration of H. R. 4433. We are merely a subcommittee to hear testimony with reference to this bill, which will be later presented to the full committee. I have a telegram here from one gentleman who had not been notified of the hearing, but who wishes to be heard. I will get in touch with him and send him a copy of the bill. We cannot have a meeting of the full committee before next week anyway, but we will proceed this morning with an explanation of the measure. This bill was introduced by me upon information given by the Register of Copyrights, at my request. It is prompted by a recent Supreme Court decision, which seems to have been variously interpreted by many people interested in copyrights. Colonel Bouvé is with us this morning, and we would like to hear from him at this time with reference to the measure, the reasons for it, and what it does, and such corrections of the law as it makes. Colonel Bouvé. STATEMENT OF HON. C. L. BOUVÉ, REGISTER OF COPYRIGHTS Colonel BOUVÉ. Let me state at the outset that the sole purpose of this bill is to attempt to assure to the collections of the Library of Congress and to the use of Congress through the medium of deposit and registration of copyrighted material, the continued acquisition |