legislation as seem necessary in order to frame, if possible, a tentative bill for presentation to Congress. It is desired to have a representation of all the producers of intellectual property, including music composers. In order not to have a larger number of delegates than can be managed it has seemed well to have delegations appointed by the different associations representing the interests involved, but we have failed so far to get track of any association of music composers as such. The Music Publishers' Association will be represented, and if we could have a delegate from some association of composers of music it would be well. The Librarian suggested that I write you and ask whether you are interested or could aid us in this matter. If there is no association of composers of music would you kindly indicate how you think this class of producers could best be reached. Sincerely, yours THORVALD SOLBERG, 360 Marlborough street, Boston, Mass. GEORGE WHITEFIELD CHADWICK, Esq., Mr. THORVALD SOLBERG, THE NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC, Register of Copyrights, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: There is no association of musical composers in America that I am aware of, but I think if you write to Mr. William A. Fisher, of the Oliver Ditson Company, Boston, he can furnish you a list of the more important composers. I suspect, however, that the composers who will be perhaps the most interested are those whose compositions are published by M. Witmark & Co., of New York. If you wish I can send you the names of all the Boston composers. Yours, very truly, G. W. CHADWICK, Director. The CHAIRMAN. Have you any matters you wish to put in the record? The LIBRARIAN. If I may ask Mr. Cromelin: Your Musical Copyright League has been recently organized-since the last hearing? Mr. CROMELIN. Yes. The LIBRARIAN. Do you know of any concerns making perforated rolls or sound records that existed prior to your organization, excepting mere jobbing associations? I mean an association such as would correspond, in that industry, to the association of book publishers, for instance? Mr. CROMELIN. I know of none. The LIBRARIAN. I ask that because we made an endeavor to ascertain one. I have some communications here. The CHAIRMAN. That may go into the record. ASSOCIATED ADVERTISING CLUBS OF AMERICA, SECRETARY'S OFFICE, Kansas City, Mo., December 5, 1906. Mr. HERBERT PUTNAM, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: At the convention of the Advertising Clubs of America, held in St. Louis, October 9 to 11, 1906, the convention adopted a resolution, copy of which I herewith inclose. In order that you may see something of the work that the legislative committee in our organization will take up and something of what it desires to present at the conference referred to in the resolution, I inclose herewith a copy of the pamphlet printed under the auspices of that committee. Any further information that you may request in regard to this matter I shall be pleased to furnish you upon request. J. O. YOUNG, Very truly, Secretary. Resolved, That the Advertising Clubs of America realize that the proposed changes in the copyright law are of great importance to members of this organization, and that this organization therefore desires representation and hearing at any future conferences relating thereto, either before the committees of Congress having such matters in charge or elsewhere, and that a copy of this resolution be mailed to the Librarian of Congress by the secretary of the federation. Furthermore, that a committee of five be appointed by the president to study the bill now pending before Congress and any others that may be submitted at the next session of Congress, and that said committee shall see to it that the interests of the advertising men of this federation be duly represented and presented before the committees of Congress before mentioned and at any other conferences that may be held relative to proposed changes in the copyright law. Wм. H. BABCOck, No. 709 G STREET NORTHWEST, Washington, D. C., December 11, 1906. DEAR MR. SOLBERG: As it is hardly practicable for me to attend the committee's session at this season, will you not kindly present my few and brief suggestions for me, by reading or having read to them this letter. You know that I am sometimes called on for opinions, counsel, and service in copyright matters; also that I have done a little publishing and am the author of a number of published books. I have had a varied and extensive experience of agreements with publishers. Consider me, please, as representing authors who have some market value at times, yet can not often dominate the market nor practically control the details of publication, notice, and supply of copies-that is to say, most authors. After "deposited" line 4, section 11, insert "by the publishers of said work." Add at the end of said section "If the said work be a bound book, the omission of the publisher to deposit the said copies within the time stated shall be a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of twenty dollars; but the copyright shall not be affected thereby, if the author, on being duly notified of such omission, shall within thirty days after such notice supply the said copies. On line 5 of the second paragraph of section 14 change the words "person claiming copyright" to "publisher or publishers of said book." Very often the author is the "person claiming copyright," but the publishers alone know just where the printing is done. My latest book was printed under contract with the publishers (I think) in Watertown, N. Y. But I can't swear that it wasn't shipped over the lake to Toronto. Why make a man swear when his information must be hearsay or nothing? If anyone must swear, let it be the man who knows. Section 9. The first sentence should be changed to read somewhat like this: "SEC. 9. That any person entitled thereto by this act may secure copyright for his work by registering the title thereof with the Register of Copyrights, as herein provided, such copyright being perfected by the publication of such work. The notice of copyright required by this act shall be affixed by the publisher or publishers of such work to each copy thereof published or offered for sale by the said publisher or publishers or under the authority or control thereof in the United States." The remainder of the present section to be retained, adding as follows: "In the case of a book the omission of such notice from any copy thereof shall be a misdemeanor on the part of the publisher or publishers punishable by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars, but such omission shall not in anywise affect the copyright, provided the author shall not have explicitly authorized such omission and, provided further, that any title to said copyright or any part thereof, legal or equitable, shall be the property of said author at the time of such omission or of such punishment." You will remember a letter which I once showed you from a publisher, cynically announcing that he had destroyed the author's copyright by omitting notice from some copies and therefore that he should publish through the extended term without paying anything. I don't need to characterize such an act or such a person. Many publishers are excellent men. Others are rascals. A third class will generally keep an agreement if it does not pinch them too sharply, but will strain every advantage the law and circumstances give them. I would ask Congress, and especially the joint committee of gentlemen now considering the matter, to see fair play. I would remind them of the words of the Constitution on which the copyright law is based. I would point out that the law now in force practically puts the author at the mercy of the publisher, since the latter in several easy ways may, without even the knowledge of the author, destroy all the latter's legal rights in the book. The law now proposed is obviously an improvement, but even it lays burdens on the author which ought not to be there, making him swear to matters which in his case must be conjectural, supply copies which may not be furnished him, and have the responsibility in some degree for the mere insertion of notices which are beyond his control. Indeed, he can not know whether they are always inserted or not unless by a persistent supervision which no one could practically undertake and which would not be tolerated. I think the trouble arises from some confusion between the position of the author and the position of the publisher. A few books are published by the author. A few others are sold outright to the publisher. A few more are published under royalty for authors so popular and profitable that no publisher can afford to impose on them. But after deducting all these the great majority of cases still remain. In many of these the author retains the copyright by agreement, either because he insists on that, as I generally do, or because he pays all or a great part of the expenses of publication. In either case the publisher may have little interest in saving the copyright; he may even find an interest in surreptitiously destroying it, as in the instance cited. Beyond question many valuable works are thus jeopardized. This is the very reverse of encouragement to the author. There could not be a more shocking perversion of power constitutionally conferred. I hope the gentlemen of the committee will make the remedy thorough. WM. H. BABCOCK. BRITTON & GRAY, ATTORNEYS AND COUNSELORS AT LAW, Hon. HERBERT PUTNAM, LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. PUTNAM: Almost immediately following my conversation with you over the phone, I received from Mr. Falk the inclosed protest in reply to the newspaper protest. Will you kindly see that it is printed with the record. Yours, very truly, BRITTON & GRAY. NEW YORK, December 15, 1906. To the Joint Senate and House Committee on Patents, Washington, D. C.: The Photographers' Copyright League of America have had two delegates in attendance at every hearing given by you on the proposed bill, in order to explain any question that might arise as to the bill in its present form as it provides for photography. Only by accident have we learned that a written objection was filed by the American Newspaper Publishers' Association at the very close of the final hearing. We are in ignorance of the text of this memorandum except as intimated in a newspaper report. In view of the fact that four representatives of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association attended the conferences, and that the objections now presented were formulated and recommended by their coypright committee as far back as February 20, 1906, at the twentieth annual convention of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association, held in New York City, we protest that it is unfair to have delayed the presentation of the aforesaid objections until the moment of the adjournment of the hearings, when no rejoiner could be made. The objection to the proposed form of "notice"-that "it seems to reduce the requirements of warning as to the fact of copyright"-is not substantiated by the text of the bill (see section 14), which provides for the word "Copyright,” or the abbreviation "Copr.,' ""or the letter C inclosed in a circle thus: C), accompanied in every case by the name of the author or copyright proprietor as registered in the Copyright Office," which gives exactly the same warning as in the present law. (The symbols "Copr." and "," accompanied in every case by the name of the author or copyright proprietor, are surely as lucid and protective as the symbols required in the trade-mark act (February 20, 1905)-"Reg. U. S. Pat. Off.," which are acknowledged to answer every purpose of warning. The elimination of the date from the "notice" is to-day a part of the practice of the average high-class newspaper which frequently fails to print it (except in the case of the date being that of the current year, and often even then) in spite of the require ment to do so necessitated by the present law, contained in their license to reproduce, on the plea that a back date takes away from the news value. This occurs in thousands of cases every year and is so evidently in accord with the desire and practice of the newspaper world that it is probably not included in their objection. The criticism that the new bill is more severe in its application to infringements than the existing law is correct only in part. The assessment of $1 per infringing copy and the maximum of $5,000 are not changed from the present law. The new bill, however, does away with the anomaly of the present law by the wording of which the penalty applies only to copies "found in possession. It has often happened that a willful infringer who had sold and issued all the infringing copies before the infringement could be discovered and who had made a profit out of the sales and accomplished the most injury, could not be punished, whereas a perhaps unintentional infringer, who had not issued his infringements, could be punished because the copies could still be "found" in his "possession." The contention that "newspaper reprints of photographs are not such reproductions as can be substituted in sales for the originals" is misleading and calculated to divert attention from the vital point. Many photographs are copyrighted to protect the privacy of the individual portrayed, and to give any publisher the right to reproduce such portraits without license would destroy privacy. The essence of copyright is the control of the thing copyrighted, and a photograph when copyrighted should be controlled by the owner of the copyright, as in every other class of copyright property. As to the benefit or harm accruing from its reproduction, it is for the owner to judge. We submit that either a copyright belongs to its owner or it is not a copyright at all. Respectfully, yours, B. J. FALK, NATHAN BURKAN, ATTORNEY AND COUNSELOR AT LAW, 99 Nassau street, New York, December 15, 1906. DEAR MR. SOLBERG: I herewith inclose remarks made before committee with corrections. In my haste to finish in the time allotted me I made a number of errors, which I desire to correct. Thanking you in advance. Sincerely, yours, I also inclose substitute for section (g). Substitute submitted by Nathan Burkan. N. BURKAN. SEC. 1 (g). To make any record of any copyrighted musical or literary work or any part thereof, after this act shall have gone into effect, in any system of notation, perforations, protuberances, depressions, impressions, or in any other system, manner or method whatsoever, used for reproduction to the ear by mechanical instruments or devices; to make any sound record of the same or any part thereof adapted to reproduce or cause any mechanical instrument to reproduce to the ear the sounds forming or identifying the same; to use, embody, or represent the same or any part thereof in any manner whatever, in any device adapted to reproduce or to cause any mechanical instrument to reproduce to the ear the same or any part thereof. COMMITTEE ON RIVERS AND HARBORS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNITED STATES, Hon. HERBERT PUTNAM, LIBRARIAN, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR SIR: I have a letter from the Cleveland Directory Company strongly favoring the pending copyright bill. The president of this company maintains that under present conditions irresponsible persons may copy their work, which has cost months of labor and thousands of dollars to complete. He strongly favors the misdemeanor section. I should be glad if these sections should receive careful attention in the framing of any bill which may be recommended. I shall be glad to confer with you in regard to the measure if any assistance is required. Yours, very respectfully, T. E. BURTON. CYRUS KEHR, Counsellor at Law, 605 EMPIRE BUILDING, KNOXVILLE, TENN., Knoxville, Tenn., December 6, 1906. Hon. THORVALD SOLBERG, Register of Copyrights, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. SIR: Your circular and accompanying copy of digest of suggestions and criticisms relating to the pending copyright bill (S. 6330; H. R. 19853) came during my absence. I am correctly quoted regarding section 25, paragraph 2. The suggestion which I make I know from practical experience to be important. In a case of infringement of an art photograph the infringer made photographic copies including the lawful publisher's copyright mark, the whole being done so accurately that it was extremely difficult to ascertain that the copies under consideration were in fact spurious. In this way a skillful infringer can carry on his piracy a long time without being discovered, and even after the discovery is made it may be difficult to prove to a jury or court that the spurious copies were not put out by the lawful publisher. I regard this as the most contemptible form of copyright piracy. It is akin to counterfeiting and forgery. I take leave to suggest the insertion of the following paragraph immediately after the first paragraph of section 25: "Any person who, with fraudulent intent, shall insert or impress or apply into, to, or upon any article which is an infringement of any copyright secured by this or any other act of Congress, the notice of copyright inserted or impressed or applied into, to, or upon an article published or made by a lawful publisher or maker under said copyright, or who shall wilfully or knowingly aid or abet in so inserting or impressing or applying such notice to such infringing article or who shall wilfully or knowingly import such an infringing article bearing such copyright notice, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment for not exceeding one year or by fine of not less than two hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars, or both, in the discretion of the court, such punishment being independent of the punishment provided by the last preceding paragraph of this section." In section 25, line 2, are the words "any copyright secured by this act." Why limit to this act? This remedy should apply to acts now in force. Why not use "any copyright secured by this or any other act of Congress?" The same applies to line 2 of the second paragraph of section 25. In section 25, second paragraph, line 3, are the words: "upon any article." Is this paragraph intended to apply this penalty for every article or collectively to a group or lot of articles made at one time? Very respectfully, CYRUS KEHR. Hon. THORVALD SOLBERG, CYRUS KEHR, COUNSELLOR At Law, Register of Copyrights, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. SIR: In copyright bill (S. 6330; H. R. 19853), I take leave to suggest the addition to section 23-perhaps to follow paragraph (d)—a provision providing that it shall be a misdemeanor punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both, for an infringer, or his agents or employees, to destroy, secrete, or remove infringing copies after the marshal enters upon the premises with a writ of seizure or other writ for the seizing or taking of such copies. I make this suggestion because of actual cases of such removal or secretion. Recently there was a case in which about 5,000 infringing copies were thrown down the back stairway after the marshal had entered the premises. Very respectfully, CYRUS KEHR |