as his real estate, and where these are protected by copyright their right is secured to the owner, as effectively as his house and lot is by a deed or title. When such legal protection is not invoked, as in the case of the greater part of periodical technical literature, it is because the authors or editors think that the matter may be of general interest, and for that reason, those so desiring it should not be put to the trouble of obtaining specific permission to reproduce it. The absence of such legal requirements does not change the ownership of the material or remove from the author the right to be credited for his labor. There are many men whose only aim in literary production is to disseminate knowledge. Such men have no especial personal pride in their work, except for the work's sake, and are indifferent as to the proper recognition by others who copy their material, so long as the theory which they have evolved or the information they have collected is given to the world. In such cases the burden of responsibility rests upon the one who copies. Any unacknowledged statement in a book is assumed to be the work of the author, and, even if the originator is indifferent, the one who repeats it owes it to himself to disclaim the authorship and to give credit where credit is due. It is a poor sort of a man who parades another man's work as his own. But aside from the attitude of common honesty there is a phase of the matter equally as important if not so obvious, which holds in technical reproductions. That is the necessity of pinning every fact down to its original source so that the future investigator can have the benefit of original research, if he so desires. The technical periodical is an expression of the growth of the profession it represents. More than any technical book does it contain the working out of the daily problems of some branch of technology. It is the exchange place of new ideas. Necessarily from time to time certain men, better versed in a particular branch than their fellows, feel called upon to write a book upon that subject. This book will be a compilation of the results of the author's experience and study, which study must be largely from the experiences of other men, recorded in some printed form. No man can cover in his own experience the entire ramifications of any subject, however small it may be. Therefore he must draw on the periodical publication which is the principal medium through which past experience may be given out, and as the matter there published must be more detailed and discursive than can be compacted into the narrow confines of a general treatise, he can only draw in part or in abstract. However, the student may care to go further in his special investigations than the author could publish in his book. To bring his book, therefore, to its highest use, it is incumbent upon the author to record every authority and reference, to label the source of every piece of knowledge other than those of the most general nature. It is understood, of course, that the line must be drawn somewhere or else our books would be nothing but masses of references to past work. Where the information is the property of anyone who cares to investigate, such as is found in the news columns of our daily papers, or a matter of general knowledge in the present state of the art or even the simultaneous publication of several books or papers, it is unnecessary that its origin should be noted. When it is a matter of exclusive publication, or an idea of original discovery, the needs of the future student require that the source should be shown. As an illustration of the extent to which this practice has gone, we call to mind a recently published English book in which nearly half of the material is taken from American periodicals, no credit being given in any instance, though the matter is frankly a compilation and the author is most punctilious in acknowledging his debt to the few European publications from which he has drawn. In one instance, particularly, he reproduces, with his own style of shading and lettering, certain sketches made originaly in the office of "Engineering News" by members of its staff; sketches which have no resemblance whatever to any other existing drawings. In view of the fact that a portion of his material is duly accredited to its proper place, the only deduction of the reader, ignorant of the true facts of the case, is that the remainder of the work must be original. In addition to the dishonest impression thereby given, how much more valuable would be the book if the reader who wishes to pursue the investigation could get hold of the matter as originally explained in full in the much more detailed accounts of the technical press. XIV COPYRIGHT Copyright is a right of property in a work, of a literary, artistic or illustrative character, by which the author's, or other proprietor's, ownership in the work is protected by law. Copyright in the United States is granted by the Constitution of 1787, Art. 1, Sec. 8, which states that: "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 present Copyright Law was passed by both Houses of Congress on March 3; it was signed by President Taft on March 4, and went into effect on July 1, 1909. It is entitled "An Act to amend and consolidate the acts respecting copyright,' and it takes the place of the copyright enactments formerly in force.* * This digest of the new copyright law has been limited to those clauses of special interest to writers of technical books and periodical articles, who want to know, only in a general way, what may be copyrighted, how to secure a copyright, the cost, and the protection afforded. In case of a proposed assignment of copyright, or of a contemplated action for infringement, or where further detailed information is desired, the reader is advised to obtain the complete Copyright Law. from the Copyright Office, Washington, D. C., which will be supplied free, on request. |