Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

Mr. LUCKING. Truly; but that might be done by serving an agent or the person in charge of the place of business.

Mr. CHANEY. Then if you were to add "regular and established place of business " the word "agent" would fit your idea?

Mr. LUCKING. Possibly, though "regular and established" might open a large field of contention as to what was a regular and established place of business.

Mr. BONYNGE. Even the word "agent" might do so. The question might arise, "What constitutes an agent?" There are many

Mr. LUCKING. Yes; so it might. It does now.

statutes allowing service upon agents and many disputes as to whether a person is an agent or not.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The LIBRARIAN. Mr. David C. Harrington, of Scranton, asks not exceeding three minutes, Mr. Chairman, intending to submit a statement in writing. He just wishes to explain what it is to be.

STATEMENT OF DAVID C. HARRINGTON, ESQ., OF SCRANTON, PA.

Mr. HARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I hardly intended to make any remarks when I came here, but I wish to call attention

The LIBRARIAN. Will you state what your interest is? You are at the head of the International Correspondence Schools?

Mr. HARRINGTON. The company that I represent is the International Text-Book Company, proprietors of the International Correspondence Schools, of Scranton, Pa., giving instruction all over the world by means of correspondence through the mails. Since they have been in business, in the last fifteen years, they have enrolled over 940,000 students. They perhaps correct eighty to ninety thousand papers a month of the students who send in their lessons for correction. In preparing those papers they go to great expense, and they are published in pamphlet form first, in small pamphlets, the size of a book, perhaps not larger than that [indicating]. They are sent out to the students to use, and then new sections, other sections, are sent out to them. Then they are subsequently bound in volumes, and some sets have five or six to ten volumes making a set.

What I wish to call attention to first is that you should frame this act so that in the filing of the copies of these sections of the instruction papers as they come out at different dates there should be nothing left open, but it should be definite and fixed with regard to it. It is in one respect like publishing a series of articles through a magazine. You can copyright each article in the magazine and then publish them in a book afterwards.

The next point is with regard to the notice of copyright. Here is one that is published and copyrighted; the copies are filed here in the office at different dates. I had a contest in New York in which the question arose, "When you get out a new edition, what notice of copyright must you give?" And I finally sustained the position that if you gave the original notice of copyright that was sufficient. But still it is an open question, and you will see in our publications that we put in as many different dates as there are dates when there

were papers filed here. That should be made clear, that we are right in that.

The third question is with regard to the question of damages. If anyone could take our books, which we have prepared at an expense of fifteen or twenty or twenty-five or fifty thousand dollars to get up the different courses, and rewrite them to make them clear, so as to give a student just the information he wants in his particular line of business-why, if he only had to pay $5,000 the measure of damages would be entirely insufficient.

Next, with regard to the impounding, etc. In Pennsylvania our practice is that if equity once acquires jurisdiction it has it for every purpose; and I would give the courts of equity, in matters involving the question of copyright, equitable jurisdiction to include all the questions, so that they may issue an order to impound anything they want and hold it pending the litigation, or do whatever might grow out of it, so as to avoid a multiplicity of suits.

Thanking you for giving me the little time that you have, I should like to write and submit to you some thoughts in regard to this subject. The CHAIRMAN. How soon will you do that?

Mr. HARRINGTON. I shall try to do it within the next day or two. I have got to go to St. Louis from here on some business, and shall not have an opportunity to get it to you within a week unless I do it while I am here.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well.

Mr. HARRINGTON. So I will try and give you my ideas a little more explicitly before I leave. I thank you for your attention.

Hon. ALFRED B. KITTREDGE,

INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOLS,
Washington, D. C., December 8, 1906.

Chairman Senate Committee on Patents, and

Hon. FRANK D. CURRIER,

Chairman House Committee on Patents.

[ocr errors]

SIRS The International Textbook Company was incorporated to do a printing and publishing business in 1890, the object being to give instruction by correspondence through the mail. For years it used the name "International Correspondence Schools as a trade name. In 1901 it obtained a charter for it and owns all the stock and manages it. Its object is to give technical education in the mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, mining, and all the different branches taught in technical schools and colleges. It prepares its books for the use of its students to give them all subjects necessary for them to know in their particular course, trade, or business and to leave out everything that is not necessary for them to study and as times change and there are new improvements and new inventions; it writes and rewrites its books for the use of students so as to keep them up to the very latest date possible, and this requires the getting out of new editions, altering and revising them as occasion requires. They are published in the first instance in pamphlet form with paper covers, and, taking for example its arithmetic, which is now in its seventh edition and contains 120 pages, it is divided into sections of about 24 pages each. These originally were copyrighted separately. They are also bound together, and its volume of mathematics includes: Arithmetic, 120 pages; algebra, 116 pages; logarithms, 20 pages; geometry and trigonometry, 75 pages, with questions and answers about each of the different sections. The sets of books in the different courses vary from two to ten.

It is therefore desirable, first, that the act of Congress should state specifically the method or manner in which the composite book or one published in several sections shall be copyrighted and how it required that copies of the same shall be filed in the office of the Librarian of Congress. The book to which I just referred is entitled "Mathematics," and it has all of the different subjects contained in it as above stated. On the title page it is called "I. C. S. Reference Library-A series of text-books prepared for the students of the International

Correspondence Schools, and containing in permanent form the instruction papers, examinations questions, and keys used in their various courses. Arithmetic, elements of algebra, logarithms, geometry, and trigonometry. Scranton, International Text-Book Company."

As above stated, it is therefore desirable to have the information with regard to the filing of the two copies and the title-page be specifically stated, so that there may be no mistake about it.

Second, with regard to the notice of copyright. The bound volume in question to which I am now referring has been republished five times, and consequently has on the page next to the title-page a notice of copyright in 1897, 1898, 1899, 1904, and 1905. The arithmetic has been copyrighted in sections seven times, and this is also printed on the second page; algebra, eight times; logarithms, two times; geometry and trigonometry, seven times, and the keys to the different parts, five times.

The question has arisen in the company's business in which other parties have copied from its copyrighted instruction papers and books. At first it only put on the second edition the date of the last copyright, and the parties who were sued for infringing on the copyright made the claim that by reason of the omission of the date of the first copyright that it became public property. Some of the text-books on copyrights state that if all the dates are not put in it is lost, and the copyright privilege is lost and that the book becomes public property as to all but the additions and alterations. In one case in New York I succeeded in sustaining our contention that one notice was sufficient, relying upon the case of Lawrence v. Dana. I suggest, however, that it would be advisable, perhaps, to state in the notice of copyright that no date of copyright need appear and that the publishing of revised editions with alterations, corrections, and additions to it and giving the notice of copyright by the name of Copr. or "C." inclosed within a circle followed by the name of author or copyright proprietor as registered in the Copyright Office will be sufficient notice to maintain the copyright property not only in the revised book, but in the original book or books of which it is a revised copy.

Third, as to damages, section 23. The limiting of the damages to $5,000 may be entirely inadequate. The International Text-Book Company expends thousands of dollars in preparing and writing its books. These books which are furnished to students in bound form are loaned to them, and they are useful to the company in its business, and they wish to restrict the use of them to its students, so as to get other students to take courses and pay for the instruction. If other persons can reprint the books and give instruction by correspondence to people, no one would write and prepare a book, but all he would have to do would be to pay $5,000 for the use of a book that has cost another party $25,000 to prepare, and the limiting of the amount of damages recoverable to $5,000 is entirely inadequate. I would suggest, therefore, that the maximum amount of damages be stricken out of the act and that the publishing party be permitted to recover the actual damages which he can prove he has sustained upon the trial of any particular case.

Lastly, as to the jurisdiction of the courts and the form of action to obtain possession of copies of copyrighted books which a defendant is wrongfully reproducing and selling. In equity all the remedies to which he may be entitled to under the act should be obtained in one action in equity. Courts of equity have jurisdiction for the purpose of preventing a multiplicity of actions and giving relief in every case as may do justice. In Pennsylvania the ruling is well settled that if the court of equity obtains jurisdiction over the subjectmatter in any case it may go to the extent of entering any decree in the case which it may be required, although if the jurisdiction of the court of equity had not been obtained in the first place to obtain relief for damages the plaintiff might be relegated to an action at law for damages. As, for instance, if he applies for specific performance of contract to compel the defendant to make a conveyance of real estate, and before the suit is commenced the defendant has conveyed the property to another without notice, so that at the end of the suit he can convey it because another party has obtained rights without notice, the courts will ascertain the damages which the plaintiff has sustained and give a decree for the amount in damages. It may be a saving of litigation if this jurisdiction is given the court and to have it specifically stated in the bill. Respectfully,

DAVID C. HARRINGTON, Attorney for International Text-Book Company.

The LIBRARIAN. I know of no reason, Mr. Chairman, why Mr. Steuart should not be heard now.

The CHAIRMAN. We shall be glad to hear him.

The LIBRARIAN. May I state, for the information of the committee, that the two advisory committees of the bar association, who were represented at the conferences, were one of the American Bar Association, consisting of Mr. Arthur Steuart, Mr. Edmund Wetmore, of New York, and Mr. Frank F. Reed, of Chicago; the other was of the New York Bar Association, headed by Mr. Paul Fuller, the head of the firm of Coudert Brothers, and consisting, besides him, of Mr. William G. Choate, Mr. John E. Parsons, Mr. John L. Cadwalader, Mr. Edmund Wetmore, Mr. Henry Galbraith Ward, and Mr. Arthur H. Masten. Mr. Steuart is a representative of the committee of the American Bar Association.

Mr. STEUART. Mr. Chairman, may I ask how long the committee desires to sit?

The CHAIRMAN. We will sit until 1 o'clock, at least.

Mr. STEUART. Very well.

The CHAIRMAN. How much time do you desire, Mr. Steuart?

Mr. STEUART. I think that unless the time flies faster than I think I can finish in half an hour.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well.

Mr. STEUART. But one never knows exactly how much time is going to be consumed when one begins to talk.

STATEMENT OF ARTHUR STEUART, ESQ., OF BALTIMORE, MD.

Mr. STEUART. It is not necessary, of course, to call the attention of these committees to the procedure which has brought forth this effort. There was a very general demand among the producers of copyrightable matter in the United States for some improvement of the copyright laws. That demand has been felt by the Librarian and others who have been interested in the subject; and it has resulted in the holding of three conferences of all those who were interested in the production of copyrightable matter, with a view of trying to learn what it was that they wanted, and what defects they thought existed in the law as it stands to-day.

The conferences were held under the admirable guidance and direction of the Librarian, and everybody who was interested in producing copyrightable matter was asked to state in his own way, in the fullest possible manner, what it was that he would like to have; what kind of protection he needed; how far the existing law falls short of giving him the protection he wants. What they said makes many volumes, and if it were all here before you I am sure you would all get tired. But it has been the effort of some of us to formulate out of that great mass of material a bill which would accomplish the desired results; and the bill which is here is the result of that effort.

It has been the work of many minds. It contains some incongruities, and I have no doubt that in many respects it is illogical. But it is an attempt to get into one bill all that copyright proprietors desired to cover. It may attempt too much. That is for the committee to say. All that those who were responsible for the drafting of the bill could do was to put into it everything that was thought desirable and leave it for the committee to sift and to weed

after hearing the criticisms which it was sure to receive from sources that were more or less adverse.

With reference to the general questions, there are a few problems which were presented to us at the very beginning. One was the constitutional provision, the necessity for living within certain narrow lines. Many of those who were interested in producing intellectual property desired a good many things to be protected. They wanted to get outside of the limitations of the copyright law and get into the field or the territory of the patent law. It was necessary, therefore, to remember at the very outset that nothing could be done and nothing could be constitutional which was not within the strict provisions of the Constitution and the language contained therein, and that no form of matter could be protected under the Constitution which was not in some sense a writing, as that word has been interpreted by the courts.

The question as to what is a writing is a very difficult problem, and a problem which this committee must consider, and which we have attempted to consider, in view of the cases which have been decided. The rights of authors, however, in their intellectual property, in the creations and products which they make, are absolute rights of property, and that is the fundamental basis upon which I desire this committee to rest its investigations.

The right of property which exists by virtue of creation in the writings of an author is a right of property which is just as absolute as any right which exists or is secured by the Constitution of the United States. Now, it is perfectly true that under the existing law a man who publishes his writing without having resorted to the statutory method of securing his title thereby dedicates his property to the public, and loses his property right. But Congress has provided a method by which he may crystallize his property for a limited period of time in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution; and when he has resorted to those statutory requirements, and has done that which the Congress has said to him he must do, his right of property in the creation of his own brain is absolute, complete, in every incident, and should be protected as such.

Congress should not under any circumstances attempt, I respectfully submit, in attempting to carry out the provisions of the Constitution to limit his right of property except so far as the limit of time is required by the Constitution. It is, of course, a deprivation of property to cut him down in his time, but that is a thing which Congress can not avoid, because they are required to limit the time. The discretion lies with Congress to decide how long the copyright shall extend.

The protection of copyright as property has always had the effect of encouraging authors, of encouraging literary people, of advancing the general literary standard of the community, and it will advance and increase the literary standard of our community.

Mr. BONYNGE. Mr. Steuart, may I interrupt you for a question in regard to the matter of time?

Mr. STEUART. Yes, sir.

Mr. BONYNGE. The language of the statute is that we "may secure for a limited period of time," etc., I believe.

Mr. STEUART. Yes, sir.

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »