clause of the bill excepts and continues in force section 4966 of the Revised Statutes, but it does so with the intention that this exception shall be dropped in case the general provisions stand. The reason or merit of these and other provisions of the bill will at the proper time have to be made clear to you, if challenged. That is no part of my present duty, which is merely to introduce the bill to your attention, with some explanation as to how it came to be, and some note as to its leading features. But I except two matters, and I do so to avoid misapprehension; and I feel free to do so because both involve the administration of the copyright office. One is as to fees. The impression has gone out that the fee for registration is to be doubled. The fee for registration is now 50 cents, but 50 cents additional is charged for a certificate when furnished. The proposed fee is $1, but this is to include the certificate, which is to be furnished in all cases and as a matter of course. It ought to be furnished, in the opinion of the office, and no claimant of copyright ought to rest easy without it. It is the evidence of registration and deposit-indispensable formalities, even hereafter-and it is now to be prima facie evidence in a court of law of the facts which it sets forth. If the copyright is worth the 50 cents for the registration, it seems certainly worth the additional 50 cents for the certificate. But I note here that objections are to be raised to the provision for fees, and particularly as working hardships in some cases not made exceptions, as the case of a series of studio photographs registered under one title at the same time is made an exception. You will have some suggestions as to cases in which the exaction of this fee, without some special modification in certain cases, would work an undue hardship. On the other hand, the bill tends to reduce the aggregate fees payable by any one publisher and the aggregate receipts of the office by enabling a number of volumes of the same work, and in the case of photographs, prints, and like articles, an entire series, if registered at the same time, to be registered for a single fee. The other matter is that of copyright deposits. The volume of these is now prodigious. During the last year alone the articles deposited exceeded 200,000 in number. A large proportion of these are of great value to the Library and are drawn up into it. The rest remain in the cellar. The accumulations in the cellar now number a million and a half items. Many of these would be useful in other Government libraries; for instance, medical books in the library of the SurgeonGeneral's Office. Some of them might be useful in exchange with other libraries. A few might have value in exchange with dealers. The remainder are a heavy charge upon the Government for storage and care, without any corresponding benefit. They ought to be returned to the copyright proprietors if they want them, or, if not wanted, destroyed. Such dispositions are, I believe, already within the authority of law; but it is fair that they should be expressed. The bill (secs. 58 and 59) definitely expresses them. I ask your attention to them in due course. They have been accepted by the conferences, and therefore by the interests outside of the Government most nearly concerned with their operation. But they may awaken some apprehension elsewhere because of a quite common misunderstanding of the significance of the deposit and its relation to the copyright protection. The original purpose of such deposits was the enrichment of the Library. This is clear from their history, both in this country and 66 1 abroad. They were made a condition of securing copyright, but they had no continuing relation to the copy right once secured. In England, for instance, the copies required (now five) are to be for the use of the libraries-tive libraries-no one of which is the office of registration for copyrights. The earliest act in this country was that of Massachusetts, in 1783, which exacted a copy as a gift to the library of the University of Cambridge, Harvard University, for the use of said university," which was not the office of copyright. The earliest act providing for deposit in the Library of Congress, that of 1846, provided that the copyright proprietor should give one copy of the book to this Library, and at the same time it provided that he should give one copy to the library of the Smithsonian for the use of that library. In 1867 the library of the Smithsonian became a part of the Library of Congress. The act of 1870 provided two copies, both to be addressed to the Library of Congress. But by that same act of 1870 the Library of Congress became the office of registration for copyright; and from that time, and because the failure to deposit not later than the date of publication actually voided the copyright, an impression has grown up that the articles deposited are an integral part of the record of registration, and have a peculiar sanctity as such. The fact of the deposit has been and will be an integral part of the record, and in times past this could most readily be proved by the copies themselves, the law providing neither for a certificate to the claimant admitting the receipt of the deposit nor an entry in the official record showing it. But hereafter the fact of deposit will be proved by the certificate itself. There is an impression a very natural one, too-that the copies deposited are necessary evidence of the thing copyrighted, and essential as such in litigation. Now, during the past thirty-six years the copyright office has record or memory of only four cases in which articles deposited have been summoned into court, and an authority on copyright litigations remarks that in three of these he is quite certain that the reason was a fanciful one, and in the fourth he did not see any necessity for-it. For the matter of that, however, there is little prospect that any article of sufficient importance to be a subject of litigation would be deliberately destroyed, or would fail to be drawn into the permanent collections of the Library-at least one copy of it. Mr. Chairman, having indicated something of what the bill is, let me say a word as to what it is not, in intention. First. It is not an attempt to codify the common law. The conservative bar was very fearful that it would be. Even more than the present statutes, it leaves to the courts to determine the meaning and extent of terms already construed by the courts. It does this even in cases where the temptation to define was considerable and where foreign statutes attempt a definition. For instance, Who is an author? What is publication in the case of works not reproduced in copies for sale? What is fair use? Now, many such definitions were proposed and lengthily discussed, and omitted because they did not stand the test of the best expert opinion of the most conservative advisers of the conference, particularly the committees of the bar associations. Second. The bill does not, in intention, attempt to regulate relations between authors and publishers which are or may be matter of private contract. Third. It is not an attempt at abstract and theoretic perfection, nor is it an attempt to transplant to this country theoretic or what might be charged to be sentimental provisions of foreign law. It tries to be a bill possible for this country at this time and under conditions local here. It contains, therefore, some provisions which are, in our judgment, neither theoretically sound nor according to modern usage abroad nor satisfactory to particular participants in the conference. These are a compromise between principle and expediency or between one interest and another at the conference, between which we could not decide for either extreme-I mean decide in the sense of bringing before you a suggestion in this particular form. We had not any decision in any other sense; we were not a commission. The bill is a compromise. I doubt if there is a single participant in the conferences whom it satisfies in every particular. It Fourth--and I feel really, Mr. Chairman, in justice to the conferences, after their year of labor, impelled to say this-the bill is not a mere congeries of provisions proposed by a selfish group, each member of which was considering solely his own particular interest. contains, of course, some provisions which concern only particular interests for instance, the provision as to sound records, or that as to affidavit of domestic manufacturers. But these are easily distinguishable; we suppose and we should hope that they would be distinguished, and particularly so if, as we know to be true in the case of sound records, there is to be definite objection before you against the bill as it stands; and we should hope that that objection, with the arguments of those with whom the proposal originated particularly, should be set aside for special discussion distinct from the general discussion on the bill as a whole. I say there are provisions which concern particular interests, of course, particularly; but these we should hope would be distinguished in your consideration of it. The bill is the result of a sincere attempt, as we have seen it, to frame a reasonable general statute. I say "sincere," and I feel the right to say it because I followed the conferences closely, and had the best opportunity to judge of their temper and disposition. If some of the interests were selfish in one direction, they were met by the selfishness of others in another direction, and both were under criticism from the general advisors and under the influence of the main body. And neither such interests-and I am speaking of history now, of courseneither such interests nor any other participant in the conference initiated the conference, nor determined its composition, nor controlled its proceedings. The conference was initiated by the Copyright Office at your suggestion, Mr. Chairman. It was composed of organizations invited by the office, and it was theoretically held in the office. The Librarian presided at it, and except for the purpose of some formal resolutions it never organized or in any other way passed out of the control of the office. If the bill reveals some selfishness, it is perhaps condonable. It is the selfishness of men trying to protect their own property; for of course, as I have emphasized, the interests that were especially invited to the conferences were those that are concerned in an affirmative way with the protection of the right. The conferences were not generally representative completely representative-in other respects. The bill has that purpose-that is, for the protection particularly of the property. It comes before you for consideration on the ground that it goes too far. It does not create, of course, a new species of property; it merely recognizes a species of property created by the Constitution and already recognized by statute. Its purpose is simply to secure to the man who has created it a species of property which peculiarly requires the protection of law, because the very act which makes it remunerative to him lays it open to expropriation-that is, the act of publication-and seems peculiarly entitled to the protection of the law, because it is that act, and that alone, which makes it of any use to the public; and of course it secures this protection-not permanently, but only against untimely expropriation. It may be said that the public was not represented at the confer ences. The public in this matter would, I suppose, belong to one of four classes: In the first place, the producer, the creator, with his publisher and manufacturer; or, second, one who is to enjoy the work as a consumer; or, third, one who wishes to utilize the work in some other work, or to reproduce and market it for his own benefit, when this can be done innocently; or, fourth, the student and critic of the rights and obligations of property, and of the regulation of this by law. There may be a fifth class, the mere pirate. He was not invited to the conferences, and I suppose he would not be to your hearings. But the innocent reproducer was not unrepresented at the conferences or in the discussions. In fact, most of the producers were also reproducers, and quite insistent upon their convenience as such. The original producers, publishers, and manufacturers were there as of right, and the student and critic through their interest and public spirit. As for the consumers, two considerable groups were actually represented, and more would have been if organizations could have been found to represent them. Others also there spoke for them. But as I understand it, it is in the interest of the consumer just because it is in the interest of the producer that copyright laws were originally designed and were called for by the Constitution; and if this proposed one fails fairly to regard that interest of the consumer, its defects will surely be brought to your attention by the third great estate which is jealous of those interests-the newspaper and periodical press; for the bill is now before the public. Finally, Mr. Chairman, notwithstanding the labor put upon it, the bill is doubtless still imperfect in expressing its intentions; and I have no doubt that while it is under consideration those especially concerned will ask leave to submit to you some amendments of phraseology. I understand that any such amendments proposed by participants in the conferences will be communicated first to the copyright office, so that they may be formulated by the register for your convenient consideration; and the office will gladly do the same for any that may reach it from any other source. The relation of the office to this project has been peculiar, Mr. Chairman, and that alone has excused me in introducing the bill to you. But having introduced it, the office will, with your permission, relapse into its more normal position of informant to your committee on matters of fact, and an adviser when its opinion is asked. With the general structure of the bill, including its phraseology, the office will of course have especial concern. Upon the general principles involved and upon matters of practice the office will naturally have some opinions, and may not avoid ultimately expressing these, even A CL-06- -2 though in doing so it incidentally supports a provision which concerns particularly a particular interest. It can not avoid this where a bill is referred to it by your committee for its opinion, and still less can it do it in the present case where it is itself in possession of the reasons which induce the various provisions and the principles supposed to underlie them. It must, as occasion requires and you think necessary, expound the bill. Mere advocacy, however, Mr. Chairman, of any particular provisions it must leave to others. Mr. Chairman, ordinarily I assume that in such a case as this those who are in a sense proponents of the measure would be heard in the affirmative in argument in support of the measure. It is my understanding that in so far as the proponents can be said to be those who participated in the conferences, they do not care for leave to make any argument as such. Certain of them, representing typical interests, would, however, be glad to submit a word or two in behalf of those interests--a very brief word, no one of them speaking for more than five minutes. We have thus far (which I am under duty to communicate to you) notice of objections to two or three particular provisions and then to the bill substantially as a whole. One of the particular provisions is that against reproduction of copyrighted musical compositions by means of some device or appliance for reproducing it to the ear. Another particular provision is that which, in two respects, curtails the privilege of American libraries to import foreign editions of works copyrighted here. Mr. CURRIER. It does so in more than two respects, does it not? Mr. PUTNAM. The present law permits two; the bill cuts the two to one. Mr. CURRIER. Yes; but there are various other restrictions embodied in the bill, are there not? Mr. PUTNAM. In regard to libraries? Mr. CURRIER. In regard to importation for libraries. Mr. PUTNAM. Yes; there may be other points. I was speaking of the two. Mr. CURRIER. The individuals are cut out, are they not? Mr. PUTNAM. The individuals are cut out. Mr. CURRIER. That is one restriction. Mr. PUTNAM. They are noted as cut out. Mr. CURRIER. The number of books is reduced from two to one? Mr. CURRIER. Then the phraseology is so changed that it must mean something. When you say, "To any book published abroad," beginning on page 16, "with the authorization of the author or copyright proprietor," what does that mean? Mr. PUTNAM. Page 16 of the library print? Mr. CURRIER. Yes; it is subdivision E, page 16. Mr. PUTNAM. Section 30-"any book published abroad with the authorization of the copyright proprietor"—that is, the authorized foreign edition. Mr. CURRIER. Well, that phraseology is new. Mr. PUTNAM. I was not of the impression that the intent was new in that. It refers to the foreign authorized edition as distinguished from the foreign unauthorized edition, because the importation of any unauthorized edition is prohibited as a fraudulent invasion of the right. It may be, of course. If there is any diminution under that |