For pensions alone in 32 years the Union has expended $31,376,675. The Union pioneered in funeral benefits and in this activity has during the past 49 years expended $12,283,759.46.

For education of apprentices the Union has expended more than a half million dollars.

To maintain one of the finest sanatoriums and a haven of refuge for aged and incapacitated members the International Typographical Union has expended more than $9,000,000 in the past 50 years.

There can be no real desire to establish a condition in the printing industry which will in any manner interfere with, restrict, or discourage the continuance of such welfare activities.

With this record of continuous constructive progress and caring for our members we should not be required to defend the industry and our membership against the competition of foreign nations whose wages, hours, and conditions of labor are not comparable in any respect with the conditions of this Nation. And we do not believe we will be so required when you know the actual facts.

For 100 year progress has been made. The life expectancy of printing trades workers has increased from 28 years to 62 years. The average annual earnings have increased from $897 in 1909 to $1,977.09 in 1940. But the present annual average is $395.27 less than in 1930, not considering that those regularly employed have voluntarily contributed 1 day each week for the direct benefit of the unemployed members.

The experience of the International Typographical Union is no doubt similar to the experiences of the other printing trades unions, therefore the foregoing statistical data will give you an actual, unbiased, and entirely competent description of the printing industry, its employment problems, and the fundamental basis upon which we honestly and sincerely oppose the International Copyright Convention as now proposed.

(Exhibits Nos. 1 and 2, submitted by Mr. Randolph, are as follows:)

EXHIBIT 1

COUNTRIES PARTIES TO THE CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF LITERARY AND ARTISTIC WORKS

(According to the records of the Department of State, April 1, 1935) Under Axis domination: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Danzig, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, including Algiers and the French Colonies, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Morocco, The Netherlands, including colonies, Norway, Poland, Rumania, Siam, Spain, including colonies, Syria and the Lebanon (under mandate of France), Tunisia. Independent countries: Brazil, Greece, Haiti, Irish Free State, Portugal, including colonies, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Yugoslavia.

British Empire: Great Britain, including colonies, protectorates, mandates, and Australia, Canada, India, Newfoundland, New Zealand, Union of South Africa and its mandates.

EXHIBIT 2

STATEMENT OF HON. CLARENCE C. DILL, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, MAY 29, 1934, HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, UNITED STATES SENATE

Senator DILL. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I shall not attempt to cover all of the features of this bill and this question, but rather to discuss one or two things, and let others who are here, who want to be heard, discuss other features of it.

I first want to call attention to the fact that this treaty and this bill propose to revolutionize the copyright laws of this country, and in that connection it should be recalled that the subject of copyright legislation is probably less known and less understood, and yet it affects every home in America more directly, than any other legislation we have, unless it be the tariff.

Most people do not realize that the copyright laws have come to really affect the lives of our people to a tremendous extent.

This Bern Convention is not a new suggestion. Yesterday I made a request of the committee to see the treaty. I thought some new proposal had been offered. I find it is the same old subject that we have been thrashing over here for several years. It is the same old fight that has been on in the Patent Committees for several years. In 1931 the House of Representatives passed a bill to enable the United States to enter the Berne Convention, it came over to the Senate, and we had long hearings on it. We amended the bill with great care. We had it before us on the floor of the Senate and discussed it for several days, and one-half of it was agreed to when a filibuster in the Senate prevented us passing it, Now we are confronted with a proposal that we join the union, and to do so with other enabling legislation, a little bill of about three pages extent.

To me, it is unthinkable that the Congress of the United States would ever consider going into this convention under a provision such as this.

I was impressed yesterday that even Mr. McClure, who is the advocate of this legislation, suggested that if we go in we should make our adherence effective at a future date in order that we might write legislation in the meantime, because otherwise, as suggested here, this Bern Convention would possibly become the law of this country. I do not think it would, myself; but that certainly might happen.

I notice that the representative of the Authors League, who is one of the most ardent advocates of joining the International Copyright Union, said they could not support this bill. It was out of the question that this legislation should be used as a basis of going into the league. The thing I want to discuss most about this bill, about this whole proposition, is the part of the bill which, in the beginning provides that all alien authors not domiciled in the United States by virtue of the adherence of the United States to the Convention, and so forth, will have their works protected, and then section 2 provides that "from and after the date upon which adherence to said convention of 1908 becomes effective, copyright protection shall be accorded without compliance with any conditions or formalities whatever for works by such alien authors who are nationals of any country which is a member of the International Copyright Union."

Now, what does that mean? That simply means that they propose by this bill to wipe out 140 years of consistent legislation on the part of the United States in regard to copyrights. They must do that, because the Bern Convention for

bids any formality as to copyrights.

It is a convention made up by foreign countries; the representatives are of foreign countries. It is a foreign law, and if we are going to join it, we must scrap our long history of copyright legislation and take the laws of a combination of foreign nations.

Mr. Chairman, we were invited to join the League of Nations. We could have joined the League of Nations without changing any statutes of our own, and yet, in the election where that was the issue, the most overwhelming defeat was administered that proposition that has been found in American politics in recent history.

We have the greatest market for copyrights in the world. I think it is equal, probably, to that of all of the rest of the world, We have a market not only for copyrights, but we have for patents. We found that the rest of the world was so anxious to have the right of foreigners in their patents protected that they modeled their statutes to meet ours rather than for us to repeal ours to meet theirs.

I have no criticism of the kind of copyright laws European countries have. They have a right to have any kind of copyright laws they desire. I do want to say just a word about the difference between copyright in the European countries and copyright in the United States.

The Bern Convention, which represents the viewpoint of the Europeans, largely, with regard to copyright as a natural monopoly, as a monopoly of the creator of the work, is in harmony with the spirit of European countries. Our Government has never so regarded copyright. The framers of the Constitution wrote this phrase in the Constitution:

"Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries."

What does that mean? That means that no man has a natural monopoly of his work; but he has a right, if Congress will give it to him, of a limited monopolya legal monopoly, if you please for a certain period of time, and our laws, from the time the first act was passed, in 1790, to this hour have always been based on the theory that a monopoly to an inventor or an author was a legal right granted by Congress, and not a right which he possessed automatically.

Now I want to review just briefly. It might be said, which is an amazing situation, that the European system favors the monopoly of the author or the inventor as against the public. Our system favors the monopoly as in favor of the public. In other words, our monopoly in copyright is justified on two theories-that the good of the public is such that we should encourage those to produce these things, and give them a monopoly for a certain period of time, after which they shall belong to the whole public.

The first law, May 31, 1790, gave copyrights "14 years from time of recording title thereof in the clerk's office as hereinafter directed."

The very first thing they had to do was to record the title in the clerk's office of the district court. Either the owner, executor, or administrator could renew for 14 years.

The second provision was that they must deposit a copy in the district court; and the third requirement was that they must publish an advertisement in a newspaper for 4 weeks.

This automatic copyright requires nothing of the kind. It requires no recording of what you produce so that anybody may know it is yours. It requires no notice being printed on it so that you can find out to whom it belongs. It requires no depositing of the copyrights. To me, it would spell chaos in the American use of copyrights.

In 1802 the copyright law was extended to designing, engraving, and etching. Again there was required due notice to be printed on the title page of the book. Our copyright law as interpreted by the courts is based entirely on the theory of a legal monopoly on certain prescribed conditions laid down by Congress.

The courts have pointed out again and again that the purpose of this recording, the purpose of this notice, the purpose of this depositing, is that a third party who wants to use it may act intelligently, first in finding out to whom the work belongs; secondly, in making clear when the copyright will die; and thirdly, in being able to go directly to this person or his representative and negotiate for its

use.

In 1831 the copyright was extended to musical compositions, but again these requirements had to be met. Provisions for registration, deposit, and notice were placed in the law.

In 1834 the provision for the recording of the transfer of assignment was put in the law, and if you did not record your assignment within 60 days it was null and void, again protecting the third party, the public, in the matter of furnishing information to the public, so that they could secure the right to use these copyrights.

In 1846 they required that one copy of the publication should be deposited with Librarian of the Smithsonian Institute, and one with the Library of Congress.

In 1856 the copyright of plays was extended to cover the dramatic or performing right.

In 1865 it was extended to photographs, also requiring registration, deposit, and notice, and you had to file a copy of the photograph with the Library of Congress. In 1867 they provided a fine of $25 for failure to file a copy with the Library of Congress.

In 1870 it was provided that all registration thereafter should be with the Library of Congress alone.

In 1873 they enacted a new law, reenacted all previous requirements as to registration, deposit and notice, and grant of copyright was made to depend upon "complying with the provisions of this chapter.

In 1891 the law was reenacted containing all of these provisions, and I think that is significant, for that was 6 years after the Bern Convention. For the first time we wrote into the copyright law the recognition of the rights of foreign authors, that is, that they might, under certain conditions, secure copyright protection; namely, that they should comply with our requirements of law.

In 1909 Congress required the indexing of all copyright registrations and assignments, and printing of catalogs.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I review this history briefly to show that for 140 years the Congress of the United States has insisted that there shall be certain formalities as a condition of the grant and enjoyment of copyrights.

I do not know who is responsible-I think it was probably the author of the bill, Senator Cutting-for this bill coming to this committee. This bill should not be in this committee, if I may say so, with all due respect. This is a Committee on Foreign Relations. The treaty is properly before this committee, but the bill to fit into the treaty, by which we shall take care of the copyright situation, should go to the Patents Committee of the Senate. That committee has held hearings. I went back and refreshed my memory of some of them, some of the things that we had taken up in the hearings 3 years ago. That committee has held repeated hearings and has before it a considerable number of copyright laws, and I believe that the law should be changed. I think there are certain amendments needed.

I made a considerable study of the subject as to why the authors and composers are so anxious to have the law changed, and it is a very difficult thing to get them to tell you anything specifically and definitely, but when you pin them down you will find there are just two things in the present law that are seriously defective from the standpoint of the author. In the first place, if a mistake is made in the notice of the copyright, or if the notice of the copyright is omitted, the copyright is lost. That is a serious defect in the law. It should be cured. There should be a provision that that should not invalidate the copyright, and that correction should save the whole situation. I think that is a simple matter, and that that ought to be done.

A second serious objection-and I think it is serious-is that the present copyright law makes it impossible for an author to copyright his work unless he has it published, and when published it must be copyrighted by the publisher, and as a result the author is at the mercy of the publisher.

Those defects, I think, are serious. The writer who wants to sell his material to a magazine finds himself practically compelled to sign away all kinds of rights that he ought to possess, and those defects should be remedied. Of course, those are not the only defects of the copyright law; but those are serious defects, from the author's standpoint.

One of the greatest defects is the promotion of monopoly of music composed in this country. They have taken advantage of the situation to reap profits for themselves to the point that there is an organization in New York which holds a sort of a club over everybody who wants to use any music, and they charge him whatever they see fit. You cannot go to that organization and secure the right to use one or two or three of their compositions. You must pay for them all. There is no way to stop this practice under the present law.

I am not going into that. The point I want to make is this, that the copyright laws need revising. I have myself introduced a bill in this session. I think it is a good bill, but I would be perfectly willing to modify it.

There is need for revision.

There are many things to be said as to going into the Bern Convention, and we should put certain reservations on this. It would be better still, probably, to wait until the next convention, so that we will have a right to put on these reservations.

We cannot afford to scrap 140 years of copyright law, of court decisions, of customs, simply because we want to get into this Bern Convention and take their terms in order to get in. I believe, as I said a while ago, the American market is so large and is so great that we can have something to say at least about the terms on which we go in.

In the Vestal bill, in 1931, we provided for entering into the Bern Convention, but we put into that bill a provision about this automatic copyright; namely, that you could not enforce the copyright to the point of securing damages for its use without registration and notice of the copyright, and there was some question at the time as to whether or not that would comply with the Bern requirements. There was argument both ways. I think it would, and I was willing at that time to accept that proposition because I was in the minority, and I had to take what I could get; but it is not my view of the kind of legislation we should write. I do want to suggest that it is impossible for this legislation to be passed at this Congress. We are near the close. It is a subject so big that it needs the most careful study of the committee that is appointed for the purpose of studying the subject of copyrights.

I think this subcommittee ought to recommend back to the full committee that this bill should be transferred to the Committee on Patents, and that the Bern

Convention treaty should not be ratified until suitable legislation shall have been passed to make our copyright laws fit into the picture, and to carry forward a long history of copyright legislation into the future, because the motion-picture industry and the radio, particularly, have grown up in the past few years to be such vast industries and so involved and tied into the copyright business that there are literally hundreds of millions of dollars in investment concerned in the change of these copyright laws, and, as I said at the beginning, it is unthinkable to me that the Congress would revolutionize copyrights by any such legislation as is proposed here in about three pages of printed matter.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

(By permission, Mr. Randolph subsequently submitted for the record the following supplemental statement:)

STATEMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION, THE INTERNATIONAL PRINTING PRESSMEN & ASSISTANTS UNION, THE INTERNATIONAL ELECTROTYPERS & STEREOTYPERS UNION, THE INTERNATIONAL PHOTO-ENGRAVERS UNION, THE INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF BOOKBINDERS, COMPRISING THE INTERNATIONAL ALLIED PRINTING TRADES ASSOCIATION

The association opposes the ratification of the International Copyright Conven tion by the Senate of the United States without reservation specifically requiring that no copyright be issued or recognized unless printed and bound matter be the product of American workers.

The association is composed of approximately 175,000 printing trades workers included in the membership of the above-mentioned printing trades-unions. This large number of printing trades workers are vitally concerned with the question of American copyright and are most emphatically opposed to the ratification of the copyright treaty because it would mean the nullification of American laws and a substitution therefor of laws agreed upon by representatives of foreign nations. In a statement made to a similar subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, May 29, 1934, the Honorable Clarence C. Dill, United States Senator from the State of Washington, described this International Copyright Convention in the following words: "It is a convention made up by foreign countries; the representatives are of foreign countries. It is a foreign law, and if we are going to join it, we must scrap our long history of copyright legislation and take the laws of a combination of foreign nations.'

It is admitted by representatives of the State Department that such is the case. A list of countries, parties to the convention for the protection of literary and artistic works (according to the records of the Department of State, April 1, 1935), and listed in exhibit 1, page 6, Executive Report No. 4, Seventy-fourth Congress, first session, April 1935, discloses that:

Of the countries listed, 25 are now under the domination of the Axis Powers. Nine other small countries are listed, two of which are now at war with the Axis, and others soon may be. The rest of those listed are a part of the British Empire, the future economy of which is definitely uncertain.

It is a generally accepted fact that business, as we have known it, cannot exis under the laws and the economic philosophy of the Axis Powers. What the condition will be in the British Empire in the future is seriously open to question. The other nine small countries listed-namely, Brazil, Greece, Haiti, Irish Free State, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and Yugoslavia are hardly¡ in a position to have any important influence on world policy regarding copyrights. It is amazing that our State Department would ask us to scrap what protection we have under our present copyright laws in the face of such world chaos. The Senate of the United States, by unanimous vote, on August 5, 1935, the last time copyright legislation was acted upon, inserted an amendment which reads as follows:

"Section 15 of such act, as amended, is hereby amended to read as follows: "That all copies of any copyright material in the English language which shall be distributed in the United States, in book, pamphlet, map, or sheet form, shall be printed from type set within the limits of the United States, either by hand or by the aid of any kind of typesetting machine, and/or from plates made within the limits of the United States; or if the text be produced by lithographic, photogravure, or photoengraving, or any kindred process, or any other process of reproduction now or hereafter devised, then by process wholly performed within the limits of the United States; and the printing or other reproduction of the text, and the binding of said book or pamphlet, shall be performed within the limits of the United States. Said requirements shall extend also to any copyright