Perkins bill must constitute a material injustice to the claims of the bookmanufacturing interests-paper makers, printers, binders, etc. Seventeenth. If the Perkins bill should become law, we should have an example of an American statute worded in such manner as to give protection and encouragement to the business of the English publishers and printers at the expense of the business interests of the American publishers and printers, and to the disadvantage also, as stated, of American book buyers. Eighteenth. The librarians have criticized the provisions in the Vestal bill under which the authority is given for the importation, through the owner of the copyright, of copies of transatlantic editions of copyrighted works, on the ground that it may cause to them " some inconvenience" in ascertaining what works have been copyrighted. The provision was, as said, inserted in the bill (making it an exception, we admit, to other copyright statutes) purely for the purpose of meeting the requirements of librarians and of collectors. Nineteenth. They are called upon at this time to examine the lists in order to ascertain whether a book by an American author has or has not been duly copyrighted in this country; and an ordinary business requirement for ascertaining whether or not there is an owner to a piece of property does not in inself constitute an injustice, nor should such requirement, calling for a simple amount of investigation, be permitted to stand in the way of the literary and book-manufacturing interests of the country. 66 The representative of the librarians states in a recently distributed circular that the library here, as in the case with libraries the world over," may buy for its use a copy of any book printed in an authorized edition where it pleases. This is a misstatement. The English statute is quite clear in the provision which makes absolute prohibition of the importation, whether for a library or for an individual, of a copy of any foreign edition, whether authorized or not, in competition with the authorized edition which has control of the British market. I have before me vouchers for my statement. These comprise the wording of the law itself and the statements of librarians and of publishers that this provision of the law is strictly enforced. There is, however, no difficulty on the part of a library or an individual in England in securing a copy of a transatlantic edition He simply places the order for the same through the publisher controlling the English copyright. Twentieth. The librarians have further raised the objection that the importing publisher might decline, or evade, to accept his order for the transatlantic edlition of his copyrighted book. This has not been the experience of collectors and others who have made requirement for copies of transatlantic edition of an American book, and there is no reason to suppose that on ordinary business principles the importing publisher would fail to meet the wishes of a client and to fill his order on the ordinary business basis. The bill provides, however, that in case the owner of the copyright refuses or delays to fill the order for the transatlantic edition, the library or individual has authority to import a copy direct. For the interest of the librarian, moreover, a further condition has been inserted, providing that the order must be filled in such fashion that the librarian shall not pay a higher price for his imported book than he would have paid if he ordered it directly from England. 66 66 Twenty-first. In a statement recently issued, the librarians take the ground that the Vestal bill, framed by the authors, the publishers, the artists, and the book-manufacturing unions, abandons a 'great copyright measure" and sets up in its stead a commercial pact." The Vestal bill maintains consistently the principles of copyright in line with the purpose of the American statute as set forth in the earlier sections of each bill and the similar provision in the English statute, and secures for the producer absolute control of his property. It is only through such exclusive control on the part of the author and of his assign the publisher that remedy is given for an injustice, which has through the past years become an increasing injustice. The publisher who is called upon to make investments, sometimes very conle investments, in producing books suited for ihereer Sgh Bflonforyc_qtu siderable investments, in producing books suited for the requirements of the American reader is, under the present statute, and under the provisions of the Perkins bill, prevented from securing for his author and for himself the full returns from such market. The author can not give a full title. The position is similar to that of a person assuming to own a piece of real estate, but who is obliged to admit to the possible buyer that other people have a right to camp upon and to utilize that estate without consideration. The price that he can secure is naturally smaller than if he could give a full title. Twent-second. This bill represents a consensus of opinion on the part of the authors, the publishers, the artists, and the book-manufacturing unions. The only group of people concerned with the distribution of literature who find ground for objection are the librarians. They talk of "inconvenience" to themselves, while we contend the justice and for the larger interests, literary and manufacturing, of the whole country. GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM, Chairman Bureau of Copyright of the National Here is the assertion that the United States Register of Copyrights, who wrote the Perkins bill, has challenged the entire world's copyright legislation, and set up a doctrine all his own. This is said of a man who has on both sides of the water been, for a generation, accounted our foremost authority, writing from a detached position atop an experience of 25 years of administration. Which is the man, a dupe or a knave? There is no one at this table that believes he is either. In such a wind, I take refuge in four questions: 1. Who are Mr. Solberg's associates? 2. What says the Constitution to which he is supposedly giving effect? 3. How highly have his critics' theories as to that instrument been esteemed by the Supreme Court? 4. What is the origin and purpose of the copyright, anyhow? The second of these questions is the quickest answered. The Constitution of 1787 in Article I, section 8 reads: The Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. The duty assigned you under this rubric is to promote, not manufacturing and commerce, but the progress of science and useful arts. That is, fostering the people's mental and spiritual, not their material development. There are laws enough governing trade, but here you are to legislate with an eye single to popular education. Those who devote their lives to teaching and research would, therefore, seem to have come before you with peculiar appropriateness. Who make a better use of books, and more directly promote the progress of science and useful arts than the members of the American Association of University Professors, American Chemical Society, American Historical Association, American Library Association, American Physical Society, Association of American Colleges, Association of Urban Universities, American Philological Association Archæological Institute of America, College Art Association, Geological Society of America, Linguistic Society of America, Modern Language Association of America, National Educational Association, and all the colleges and universities that go to make up the American Council on Education and the Association of American Universities? Those are the register's associates and he may be proud of them. And it is policy, not conviction, that tears the Authors' League temporarily from him. Here are the trainers of the on-coming generation, and the pioneers who are to stake off new holdings in the unknown. To these teachers and investigators we owe our civiliza tion now and hereafter. They gave us the telegraph, telephone, and phonograph, the automobile, motion picture, and radio. They stamped out small pox and yellow fever. If cancer and tuberculosis are to fall, it will be by their blows. Theirs is the task of finding the means of national safety and subsistence and the substitutes for coal and oil, of harnessing the sun and tide to release bodies from drudgery and spirits to their flight. The practical Ford is a wizard of mass production, but where would Ford be without the men in his laboratories? Marconi's wireless rests ultimately upon a stiff bit of abstruse reasoning published a half-century earlier in the London Philosophical Magazine. Who bridled Niagara and taught us to fly? Were they salesmen, or scientists? Do not these short-sighted men realize that it is to such stimulating presences in the world that they owe all the thousands of manuscripts that reach their desks? How purblind is it to harass their beneficent labor. Well, what luck have the critics of the register had in legal tests of their own copyright views? They put the price of a book on the verso of a title-page and said they would consider it an infringement of copyright if the book were sold at a lower price. In three successive unanimous verdicts, the Supreme Court negatived this view, with resultant dissolution of the American Publishers' Association, and the payment of $140,000 damages. Copyright proprietorship did not exempt from the Sherman Act. Perhaps no better should have been expected, since one of the authors of the prohibition sections of the Vestal bill has written that the constitution in this section was drawn from a mistaken point of view. What is that point of view? That's the fourth question. That copyright is a grant by society, not a natural right. It is granted to the author alone, but the legislature defines its term and its mode of exercise, just as it can limit the citizens in the enjoyment of any other right. It is to dovetail with other privileges, to the best enhancement of the public weal. He can contract with his publishers at pleasure, but the author can not bind the public to his contract, any more than the corner grocer in engaging stock and good will can bind his predecessor's patrons to him. The publisher buys what the law allows, and barters accordingly. As its name indicates, copyright means the right to copy a literary or artistic work: that is, the exclusive privilege of issue. The unauthorized reproducer is excluded from the property. The "exclusive" refers to foes, not allies. He alone can issue his work, but his issue must be such as to promote the progress of science and useful arts. It can not be said too emphatically and too often that the sole proper purpose of copyright legislation is to halt piracy. It is futile, then, to say that a later section of the Perkins bill took away the rights given in the first section. Section 1 fences the author's property in for him to develop. Later sections see that his development is in accordance with public welfare. It bars out his foes, and then sees to it that he and his assign do not harm a friend. We are now a little better prepared to handle the coiner of the dictum that the register has violated the copyright statutes of the entire world, and entered provisions entnrely inconsistent with the principles of copyright. These statutes are open to consultation. What do they say upon the point at issue? The Perkins bill bars foreign reprints of American works, whether authorized or piratical, but allows entry without impediment of authorized foreign originals whether or not reprinted here. The Swiss act of 1922 goes further, and allows free course back and forth of all authorized editions, whether original or reprinted. Tauchnitz in Germany exclusively reprinting British and American texts readily agrees that the German law allows the free entry into Germany of the Britich and American originals for any purpose. The Belgian law forbids the importation of illicit publications for commercial purposes only. England penalizes the importation for sale or hire of an infringing work. Importation for use is inferentially permitted. This right is not merely asserted by the Director of the British Museum and the long-time Secretary of the British Authors' Society, but it has been specifically conceded by both courts, passing in 1896 upon a similar provision in the law of 1842 then in vogue. That the privilege is not often resorted to is beside the point. Its there, and conceded. There is a good reason why it is not much used, as we shall see later. And so the counsel of the British Authors' Society says quite naturally that he sees no objection to continuing the provisions of the present law whereby individuals and libraries may import for use and not for sale single copies of originals reprinted here. England in this respect is followed by Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and South Africa, while Canada is even more explicit in saying that anyone in Canada can import what he likes from countries in the membership of the International Copyright Union. The laws of other countries are silent, as is the code of the union. "The question of the regulation of the law of divided edition does not touch the revised convention of Berne directly," writes the director of the unions central office and the editor of its official organ. "The domestic law of the contracting countries can not only fix these rights by sanctions but also establish conditions and restrictions." So the gentleman's assertion that the register has violated the copyright statutes of he entire world must be whittled down close to 100 per cent. The next four divisions of the Putnam statement deal with the term (Perkins bill, sec. 24; Vestal bill, sec. 15). I confess to dissent from both bills on this score despite considerable international precedent. Since 1790, the year of the first copyright act, the law has given a renewal term to the author or his family. These two bills agree in granting a single term of life and 50 years. The latter is distinctly to the advantage of the publisher, the former to the author's. Works of lasting fame, like the birds of greatest soaring, are inclined to a slow take-off. They are apt to be sold outright for small sums. If the term is long and continuous the publisher gets about all the profit. But a second term given only to the author and his family offers the opportunity of correcting this initial inequity. For the sake of the wife and children the term should continue after death, but there ought to be a break in it. Mr. BLOOM. How are you interested in that? Mr. RANEY. I am criticizing the Putnam statement. Mr. BLOOM. I know; but how are you interested in that particular line of legislation? The people you represent are not. Mr. RANEY. Oh, yes; the authors are. There are different kinds of authors. The Perkins bill provides a break for the authors, to be sure, during the transition period from the old to the new system for the residue from the expiration of the subsisting 28-year term to the end of the 50-year term is given the author but after the transition is fully effected there is no further break. Incidentally, I think the German term of 30 years after death is the preferable one. That shows regard enough for the dependents. When you can not quote Kiplings" If" in a school reader till he is a half century gone, copyright has been abused. They are always trying to stretch the term. A bill was actually introduced in the Senate, in 1900, fixing it at a thousand years! The Vestal bill holds here one very ugly provision. For works issued under the royalty system the proposed arrangement of continued royalty during the extended term is not so bad, but if there has been an outright sale for the subsisting term and agreement to sell for the renewal term under the present act, then upon the expiration of the 28-year term during the operation of the new act the purchaser gets the rest of the 50-year term unless the author is alive. In that case they will operate under an agreement then to be made, or in its absence under a court decree. So, unless the author is alive his family is left high and dry. Suppose an author publishes a book at 32, selling it outright, and then dies at 40. Under the Vestal bill the publisher would get it all, i. e., 58 years in this case. Under existing law the family could make a new 28-year contract at the end of the first 28-year term. Under the Perkins bill there would be a new contract struck 20 years after this author's death to run for 30 years. The scheme is proposed they say to safeguard investments in textbooks, of which some distant relative might halt the publication under the Perkins bill. One question. How many of your father's school books are your children using now? A textbook is lucky to last five years. Mr. BLOOM. Are you asking me that question? Mr. RANEY. It can be addressed to you. Mr. BLOOM. They have still got them. Mr. RANEY. They are not using them. Mr. BLOOM. How do you know they are not using them? Mr. BLOOM. All right; if you have the books in your library, they are keeping them. They use them, look at them, and maybe use them for reference. You do not think they throw them away, do you? Mr. RANEY. There is no such thing in my library. Maybe I am fortunate. I say a textbook is lucky to last five years. They've got their eyes on fatter cats than that. Amend here by all means, and keep faith with young aspiring authors. Note, further, that even in a royalty case the Vestal bill stops with the immediate family or executor, while the Perkins bill continues to the next of kin, as at present. Sections 6 and 7 of the circular are meant to restate a little more fully the first section already commented upon. That is, the initial exclusion is later chipped away. But the writer gets the two bills and the present law hopelessly mixed. He speaks of a long list of |