This means in the United States that it will be necessary to modify the present manufacturing clause which requires foreign authors to publish an American edition of their works in order to obtain copyright protection in the United States. The modification, however, would not relieve American authors of this requirement, and so would affect only 1 or 2 percent of the book-printing business. In return, American authors, composers, artists, publishers, and motion-picture producers would receive recognition of their copyrights in practically all countries of the world except Russia, China, and the Latin-American Republics—a protection now obtained under the Bern Copyright Union of 1886 only through a technicality not very flattering to the United States. The United States did not join the Bern Union, but since Canada is a member, American publishers gain its benefits by putting a book on sale in Canada at the same time as in the States and then claiming protection for it as a Canadian work. The Universal Copyright Convention was drawn partly as an endeavor to meet American desires on the subject. It was signed by 40 countries. It is endorsed in the United States by the American Library Association, American Council on Education, Authors League of America, and American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. It should be ratified and supported with corresponding legislation. [From Minneapolis Morning Tribune, March 9, 1954] COPYRIGHT CONVENTION The United States, acknowledged leader of the free world, has for more than half a century lagged behind in fostering the free interchange of ideas through. an international copyright agreement. Congress now has before it legislation to aline us with other countries in this important respect. The United States is not a member of the Bern Copyright Union created in 1886. Other principal exceptions are the Spanish American Republics, China, and Russia. As a result of this, foreign authors, composers, and artists have to go through a complicated process to gain copyright protection in the United States. In the case of books by foreign authors, full protection cannot be assured here unless the work is printed and bound in this country. The other side of the coin is that works of American authors and composers cannot be copyrighted abroad except through a kind of subterfuge. By publishing a small token edition in Canada, which is a member of the Bern Copyright Union, American publishers receive the protection of the Bern agreement. This is not a position of dignity. Nor is it a position of leadership. The United States has not endeared itself to the rest of the world by refusing to join other countries in protecting creative artists. The situation can be remedied, so far as we are concerned, in this session of Congress. The United States and 39 other countries signed a new Universal Copyright Convention at Geneva in September 1952. The convention will take effect only when it has been ratified by 12 countries, at least 4 of which do not belong to the Bern Convention. Bills providing for the United States ratification are now before the House and Senate. Members of Congress from the Upper Midwest will have no small voice in this country's decision. Senators Humphrey of Minnesota, Wiley of Wisconsin, and Langer of North Dakota are on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is the key to action in this matter. It is important that the bills providing for ratification be passed. It would be good if they were passed by ringing majorities that would assure the world of our wholehearted desire to advance the free and orderly interchange of ideas. [From St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 20, 1954] NEGLECTED JOB IN CONGRESS Committees of Congress responsible for hearings on United States adherence to the Universal Copyright Convention ought to get ahead with that important work. The subject has been before each of 3 committees concerned for more than 6 months, and yet no hearings have been held. The committees involved are: Senate Foreign Relations, Wiley of Wisconsin, chairman. House Judiciary, Chauncey W. Reed of Illinois, chairman. The new convention succeeds the Berne Copyright Union, which the United States has stayed out of because of the sweeping nature of its protection. The only other holdouts are Russia, China, and the Spanish-American Republics. Authors, composers and artists from other countries can gain copyright protection in the United States only through burdensome procedures. Their counterparts in this country gain protection in Berne Union countries through the technicality of token publication in Canada, an adherent to the Berne convention. The result has been ill will for the United States abroad, and a precarious protection internationally for works from the United States. Secretary of State Dulles and President Eisenhower have recommended adherence to the universal convention and enactment of pending legislation to make it effective. So far this matter has been lost in the legislative shuffle. Will not the chairmen of the responsible committees schedule the convention and its accompanying legislation for prompt hearings and early report to both Houses? [From Washington Post, March 22, 1954] UNIVERSAL COPYRIGHT The bills currently being considered by a House Judiciary subcommittee to make possible American adherence to the Universal Copyright Convention are dictated alike by justice and self-interest. They would amend American copyright law so as to bring it into conformity with the convention recently drafted by UNESCO. The copyright law of this country has long been outmoded. It was framed when the United States was culturally a dependency of Europe, importing much more than it exported in books, music, and other copyrightable materials. But today, of course, American novels and technical books are much in demand in all parts of the world. American authors and publishers have been enjoying the protections of an international copyright agreement framed at Berne in 1886, to which the United States is not a signatory, by a kind of tolerance on the part of the participating nations. But that tolerance may be near its endespecially in view of the inadequate protection afforded foreign books under the copyright laws of the United States. A foreign author, writing in English can obtain only 5 years' copyright protection in this country unless his book is printed here, in contrast to the 50 years' protection enjoyed by an American. This is a hangover of the protectionism extended to American book manufacturing when it was in its infancy. There is no longer any justification for it. Indeed, in effect, it not only deprives readers here of books which might overwise be imported but also invites retaliatory barriers against American books abroad. The Authors League, the American Book Publishers Council, and the American Library Association, along with a number of other interested organizations, are united in urging that Congress change the domestic copyright law and adhere to the universal convention. A Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee will consider the matter this week. We hope that it and the House Judiciary group will approve the proposed changes. American participation in the Universal Copyright Convention would constitute an important step toward freer and fairer international cultural relations. [From America, April 10, 1954] UNITED STATES COPYRIGHT ISOLATIONISM The United States now has a chance to end its copyright isolationism. The world's major publishing countries set up in 1886 the Berne Copyright Union, but Russia, China, the Spanish-American Republics, and the United States stayed out. Members of the union agreed that all works published in any country belonging to it would automatically get copyright protection in all other member countries. The United States objected that such protection was granted for too long periods and in too sweeping terms. Accordingly, since 1891, a foreign author can get protection in the United States only by going through an elaborate process of registration, deposition of a copy of the work in the Library of Congress and the payment of a fee. In addition, books in English have to be printed and bound in the United States. This strange bit of cultural isolationism has long made the United States a dog in the manger in regard to international copyright. In September 1952, the United States, with 39 other countries (including the Holy See) signed at Geneva the Universal Copyright Convention, under which citizens of any country adhering to the convention will automatically get in every other member country the same copyright protection given works of its own citizens. The convention has been approved by the administration, by educators, librarians, authors, composers, artists, and by all publishers. All that is needed is the passage of minor legislation by Congress to bring our domestic laws into conformity with the convention. Such legislation has recently been introduced and is awaiting hearing in the Judiciary Committees of House and Senate. Speedy enactment of the enabling legislation would close one annoying gap in our cultural relations with other nations. EFFECT ON EMPLOYMENT Senator HICKENLOOPER. Thank you very much, Mr. Temple. May I ask you if you see any substantial or considerable disadvantage to our country or to the people in our country, that is, to labor, publications, manufacturing and various other segments of industry, in the adoption of this convention or the implementing legislation? Mr. TEMPLE. I see no damage possible, and I believe that everybody stands to gain by it, sir. Senator HICKENLOOPER. Thank you, Mr. Temple. Senator Mansfield? Senator MANSFIELD. No questions. Senator HICKENLOOPER. Your formal statement will be included in its entirety in the record. Mr. TEMPLE. Thank you, sir. Senator HICKENLOOPER. We appreciate your coming. (The prepared statement of Mr. Temple follows:) THE UNIVERSAL COPYRIGHT CONVENTION AND S. 2559 Testimony of Phillips Temple representing the American Library Association before Subcommittees of the Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committees, United States Senate, April 8, 1954 My name is Phillips Temple. I am librarian at Georgetown University, Washington, D. C., and chairman of the Copyright Subcommittee of the Book Acquisition Committee of the American Library Association. I am appearing in support of the Universal Copyright Convention and the related domestic copyright bill, S. 2559. The council of the American Library Association adopted the following resolution at its midwinter meeting in Chicago, Ill., on February 5, 1954: "The American Library Association wholeheartedly supports the ratification of the Universal Copyright Convention now pending before the Senate. We believe that the effective and comprehensive protection here and abroad of the rights of authors and composers is a fundamental moral responsibility and express the hope that by the ratification of this convention the United States will at last take its proper place with other countries in the mutual granting of this protection." The American Library Association includes among its 20,000 members a great majority of the professional librarians in the United States in all types of libraries: public, school and college, and specialized. As indicated in the formal resolution I have just read the American Library Association supports these measures because they are in the general public interest. Librarians have no personal economic interests at stake. We are, however, the professional custodians of the accumulated knowledge of mankind in the organized collections of books, periodicals, and other materials represented in the libraries of this country. These libraries are a principal means of making books and periodicals available to the people of the United States. In 1950, for example, public libraries alone charged out almost 390 million books and bound volumes of periodicals for home loans. This figure compares with an estimated production of about 600 million copies of new books and new editions sold by the United States book publishing industry in that year, including sales to libraries. If one takes into consideration the additional use of books on the premises of public libraries and the use of books in school, college, and specialized libraries, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the distribution of books through libraries is probably quantitatively at least as important a means of making books available to the American people as the commercial sale of books. Those professionally and occupationally concerned with the distribution of books-librarians, publishers, and booksellers-naturally have a great concern for the welfare of authors, the creators of works which we distribute. An author's copyright is a legal title to his intellectual creation. Without such a legal title, as the framers of our constitutional provisions on copyright clearly saw, the professional author has no means of livelihood as well as no means of protecting the integrity of his work. Thus copyright has a very practical as well as moral basis. It is in the interest of society by means of copyright to give the author something he can sell in order that the author may continue to produce in the interest of society itself. It may be noted here that unlike titles to real estate and personal property which are perpetual, the author's title in the form of copyright is limited to a term of years, 56 years in this country, including renewal. After this limited term of years the work of the author becomes freely available to the public without royalties to the author or his heirs. It should also be noted that copyright protection in books and magazines provides a revenue to authors only with respect to the sale of copies. The reading of a single copy of a book by many individuals in a library or by successive classes of children in a school brings no additional revenue to the author holding the copyright or to the book publisher who has sold the copy. It is a tribute to the sense of broad public interest of authors and publishers that as a group they strongly endorse and support public libraries and do not attempt to secure additional revenue by sponsoring legislation to place a kind of additional royalty on the multiple readings of books in libraries and schools. This convention and the related domestic legislation are designed to protect the title of American authors to their works in other countries. The method used is the only practical one-a reciprocal arrangement without formalities. As a country which now exports much more copyrighted material than we import, we have much to gain by such an arrangement. The members of the United States delegation which negotiated the convention at Geneva are to be congratulated on their accomplishments. The protection which foreign authors will receive in this country is a necessary and fair price-but a very small pricefor the protection our authors, playwrights, songwriters, and composers will receive in other signatory countries. As librarians we have no special claim to competence in discussing the economics of this problem. It does seem to us, however, that there is a prima facie economic case in favor of the convention and that the burden of proof rests on those who would claim potential economic injury. We have felt that the groups having an economic interest in this problem in relation to books-and this is the only type of copyrighted material where any claim of potential economic damage can be made should get together and agree on the basic economic facts. Our association in 1952 urged the American Book Publishers Council and the Book Manufacturers' Institute to join with us in seeking an agreed and objective statement on these economic facts. Though nothing came of this invitation directly, I believe it may have been one of the reasons why the two groups later made joint efforts to have this problem studied. We are glad to see that the book manufacturers have now concluded that their economic interests lie in supporting the convention-it is always gratifying to see a coincidence of public and private interest. We have hoped that on further study the officials of the printing-trades unions would come to the same conclusion. But even if there were some slight potential economic disadvantages to members of the typographical unions through increasing imports of books in the English language by foreign authors, this could represent only a small fraction of the book business and an even smaller fraction of the rest of the printing industry in this country, which has grown to be the largest in the world without any protection from the manufacturing clause. Any slight increase in book imports would appear to be swallowed up in the growth of these industries and lost sight of even in the course of a single year. Beyond this, there would seem to be a clear and greater public interest in helping to place a somewhat firmer economic basis under the professions of authorship, playwrighting, songwriting, and composing on which our educational, cultural, and even economic progress so greatly depends. Ratification of the Universal Copyright Convention by the Senate and passage of S. 2559 by the Congress will result in every-increasing benefits to the United States as a nation and to its citizens for decades to come. Senator HICKENLOOPER. I have a letter from Senator Walter F. George, of Georgia, who requests that a statement made by Stephens Mitchell, who is the brother of Margaret Mitchell March, who was the author of Gone With the Wind, and, as I understand it, represents her estate in this matter, be filed in lieu of his personal appearance here, and it will be so filed. (The document referred to follows:) STATEMENT SUBMITTED TO A JOINT SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS AND THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE OF THE SENATE WITH RESPECT TO THE UNIVERSAL COPYRIGHT CONVENTION AND TO S. 2559 BY STEPHENS MITCHELL Universal copyright means worldwide appreciation of the rights of authors. This means authors everywhere. It means that thought can be universal. If the world power of its age denies this principle, it cannot complain if others deny it. Nearly all of the free world accedes to the principle. European nations, and some of those in the Americas, accede to the Berne Convention. Many countries have given their acceptance provisionally and have placed local regulations on authors and holders of copyrights which render it nearly impossible for them to cross a national boundary. The matter of expense is paramount, and few publishers and fewer authors wish to expend the sums necessary to secure effective world copyright protection. My sister, Margaret Mitchell Marsh, author of the novel Gone With the Wind, set up an office and spent the sums necessary to police her rights. This involved: 1. An office with a permanent secretary. 2. A worldwide clipping service which would tell of piracies. 3. A business manager. 4. Local lawyers and local accountants in each country where her copyright was endangered, to police infringements. 5. Local lawyers and representatives in each country where she had interests in copyrights, to see that the regulations were met. 6. A lawyer at home to supervise these activities. She did not do this to capture a foreign market. She did this for two reasons: First, to protect the holder of the world motion-picture rights. She was bound by contract to protect him, and the only way to comply with her contract was to secure adequate world copyright. However, it became apparent that in this particular case, such an investment was a sound one. When people knew that she had protected her rights and would fight for them, infringements were diminished. But most authors do not have the capital to engage in such a vast undertaking. If they do have the capital, they may lack the industry or be unable to procure competent legal advice. If they fail to do this, not only are their literary rights lost, but all subsidiary rights, such as motion picture, radio, television, and drama, will go down with them. What it cost Margaret Mitchell Marsh is here set forth. A summary of the principal cases shows: 1. Number of countries in which infringements have been detected, 14. 2. Number of infringement cases, 23. 3. Number of infringement cases successfully handled without loss other than the costs of collection, 2 (costs of collection and direct lawyers' fees, $18,500). 4. Number of cases in which losses were sustained in addition to legal expenses, 21. |