ARGUMENTS ON H. R. 19853, TO AMEND AND CONSOLIDATE THE ACTS RESPECTING COPYRIGHT. COMMITTEE ON PATENTS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., at the Senate reading room, Library of Congress, conjointly with the Senate Committee on Patents. Present, Senators Kittredge (chairman), Clapp, Smoot, Foster, and Latimer; Representatives Currier (chairman), Bonynge, Campbell, Chaney, McGavin, Sulzer, and Webb. The CHAIRMAN. We are met to consider Senate bill 6330, relative to the copyright law. We would like to hear first from Mr. Putnam regarding the history of the proposed legislation. STATEMENT OF HERBERT PUTNAM, ESQ., LIBRARIAN OF Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the origin of this bill is indicated in the message of the President to Congress last December. The passage is brief; let me read it: Our copyright laws urgently need revision. They are imperfect in definition, confused and inconsistent in expression; they omit provision for many articles which, under modern reproductive processes, are entitled to protection; they impose hardships upon the copyright proprietor which are not essential to the fair protection of the public; they are difficult for the courts to interpret and impossible for the copyright office to administer with satisfaction to the public. Attempts to improve them by amendment have been frequent, no less than twelve acts for the purpose having been passed since the Revised Statutes. To perfect them by further amendment seems impracticable. A complete revision of them is essential. Such a revision, to meet modern conditions, has been found necessary in Germany, Austria, Sweden, and other foreign countries, and bills embodying it are pending in England and the Australian colonies. It has been urged here, and proposals for a commission to undertake it have, from time to time, been pressed upon the Congress. The inconveniences of the present conditions being so great an attempt to frame appropriate legislation has been made by the Copyright Office, which has called conferences of the various interests especially and practically concerned with the operation of the copyright laws. It has secured from them suggestions as to the changes necessary; it has added from its own experience and investigation, and it has drafted a bill which embodies such of these changes and additions as, after full discussion and expert criticism, appeared to be sound and safe. In form this bill would replace the existing insufficient and inconsistent laws by one general copyright statute. It will be presented to the Congress at the coming session. It deserves prompt consideration. So far the message. It did not contain what was the fact as to the origin of this project, that it did originate in an informal suggestion on the part of the chairman of this committee. The conferences to which it refers were not open, public meetings; they were not conventions; they were conferences, and conferences 3 of organizations-that is to say, associations representing a group of interests; and those organizations were specially invited, additions being made to the list later as suggestions were made of others that should be added. The organizations selected were the most representative organizations that we could think of or that were brought to our attention as having practical concern in the amelioration of the law, but especially, of course, those concerned in an affirmative way-that is to say, in the protection of the right. They were nearly thirty in number. The list of them and their representatives is before you. (The list referred to was, by direction of the committee, made a part of the record, and is as follows:) List of associations invited to take part und the delegates nominated to be present at the conference on copyright, together with other participants. AUTHORS. American (Authors') Copyright League: Edmund Clarence Stedman 1,2, president; Richard R. Bowker, vice president; Robert Underwood Johnson 1,2, secretary; Edmund Munroe Smith, acting secretary (not present). National Institute of Arts and Letters: Edmund Clarence Stedman 1,2, president; Brander Matthews',". DRAMATISTS AND PLAYWRIGHTS. American Dramatists Club: Bronson Howard, president; Joseph I. C. Clarke 1, first vice president; Harry P. Mawson 1,2, chairman committee on legislation; Joseph R. Grismer, committee on legislation; Charles Klein 3. Association of Theatre Managers of Greater New York: Charles Burnham1, first vice president; Henry B. Harris1, secretary. ARTISTS: PAINTERS, SCULPTORS, ARCHITECTS. American Institute of Architects: Glenn Brown, secretary. 3. vice National Sculpture Society: Daniel Chester French 3, president; Karl Bitter 2,3, president. Society of American Artists: John La Farge1, president; John W. Alexander 1,2. COMPOSERS. Manuscript Society: Miss Laura Sedgwick Collins1 (charter member), F. L. Sealy 2. PUBLISHERS. American Publishers' Copyright League: William W. Appleton, president; George Haven Putnam 2,3, secretary; Charles Scribner 1,2, treasurer; Stephen H. Olin 2,3, counsel. Association of American Directory Publishers: W. H. Lee 2,3, president; W. H. Bates, secretary; Alfred Lucking, counsel; Everett S. Geer, president Hartford Printing Company; William E. Murdock, trustee of the Association of American Directory Publishers; Ralph L. Polk 3, trustee of the Association of American Directory Publishers; S. T. Leet 3. PUBLISHERS OF NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES. American Newspaper Publishers' Association: Don C. Seitz 1,2, acting chairman copyright committee; John Stewart Bryan 1,2, copyright committee; Louis M. Duvall 1,2, copyright committee; Thos. J. Walsh 2, at the request of Mr. Seitz. Periodical Publishers' Association of America: Charles Scribner 1,2. PUBLISHERS OF ARTISTIC REPRODUCTIONS: LITHOGRAPHERS, PHOTOGRAPHERS. National Association of Photoengravers: B. W. Wilson, jr.2 Photographers' Copyright League of America: B. J. Falk, president; Pirie MacDonald; A. B. Browne 3, counsel. Print Publishers' Association of America: W. A. Livingstone, president; Benjamin Curtis, secretary; George L. Canfield, counsel. Reproductive Arts Copyright League (Lithographers' Association-East): Robert M. Donaldson, president: Edmund B. Osborne, vice-president; A. Beverly Smith, secretary; Fanueil D. S. Bethune 2,3, counsel. PUBLISHERS OF MUSIC. Music Publishers' Association of the United States: J. F. Bowers 2,3, 2,3, president; Charles B. Bayly3, secretary; George W. Furniss, chairman copyright committee; Walter M. Bacon, of copyright committee; Nathan Burkan 2,3, counsel; A. R. Serven, 3 counsel; Leo Feist; Isidore Witmark 3; R. L. Thomæ 2,3 (Victor Talking Machine Company, of Philadelphia). PRINTERS AND LITHOGRAPHERS. United Typothetæ of America: Isaac H. Blanchard', of executive committee; Chas. W. Ames2, 3. International Typographical Union: J. J. Sullivan, chairman I. T. U. copyright committee; P. H. McCormick, president, and George J. Jackson, organizer, of New York Typographical Union No. 6. Central Lithographic Trades Council: W. A. Coakley3. EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. National Educational Association: George S. Davis', associate city superintendent of schools; Claude G. Leland2, librarian board of education of New York. PUBLIC LIBRARIES. American Library Association: Frank P. Hill, president; Arthur E. Bostwick. BAR ASSOCIATIONS. American Bar Association-Advisory committee: Arthur Steuart1, 3, chairman; Edmund Wetmore, Frank F. Reed (not present). Association of the Bar of the City of New York-Advisory committee: Paul Fuller3, chairman; William G. Choate, John E. Parsons, John L. Cadwalader, Edmund Wetmore, Henry Galbraith Ward, Arthur H. Masten. (Of this committee, appointed after the second conference, only Mr. Fuller was present.) counsel. MISCELLANEOUS. International Advertising Association: Will Phillip Hooper1, 2; James L. Steuart3, The Sphinx Club: Will Phillip Hooper1, 2. OTHERS PRESENT, BUT NOT FORMALLY PARTICIPATING. Samuel J. Elder, of Boston; André Lesourd3, of New York; A. Bell Malcomson3, of New York; Ansley Wilcox3, of Buffalo; A. W. Elson2, 3, of Boston; Gen. Eugene Griffin3, of New York; Charles H. Sergel3, of Chicago. Librarian of Congress, Herbert Putnam. Register of Copyrights, Thorvald Solberg. Commissioner of Patents, Frederick I. Allen (was not present, but submitted written suggestions). Department of Justice, Henry M. Hoyt, Solicitor-General (present, but not formally participating); William J. Hughes2, 3, of the Solicitor-General's Office (present, but not for formally participating). Treasury Department, Charles P. Montgomery, of the Customs Division. NOTE.-Persons marked', 2, or 3 were present only at the sessions thus indicated. The absence of a mark following a name indicates attendance at all three sessions. Mr. PUTNAM. These men are the writers of books, the writers of plays, the composers of music, the architects, painters and sculptors, the photographers and photoengravers, the publishers of books, newspapers, periodicals, music, and prints, and the manufacturers, printers, typographers, and lithographers. The conference included, therefore, those interests that abroad are considered primary in such a matter that is, the creators of the works which are to be protected and the publishers through whom the property in these becomes effective and remunerative; but it included under each of these genera several species and various subsidiary interests. It included the National Educational Association and the American Library Association as representing to some extent the consumers; and in addition to the legal counsel representing special interests it included two committees of the American Bar Association and of the New York Bar Association of experts upon copyright law, who gave gratuitous service as general advisors to the conference and in the framing of the bill. Upon questions of importation the conference had the benefit of information and advice from a representative of the Treasury Department, expert in the practice of that Department at ports of entry. The Solicitor-General, whose name appears upon the list, was not a formal participant, but his representative was present throughout as an observer of the proceedings; and if I do not emphasize the aid which he and which the Solicitor-General himself, in later informal criticism and suggestion, rendered, it is only because the practice of his office forbids him to take part in the initiation of legislation; and his assistance in this matter must not be taken as a precedent to his inconvenience. The conference held three meetings in June and November of last year and in March of this year, but, of course, as a conference it included various minor consultations and much correspondence. At the outset of the meeting last June each organization was invited to state the respects in which it deemed the present law defective or injurious, either to its own interest, or, in its opinion, to the general interest. The second conference had before it a memorandum prepared by the register embodying provisions deemed by the office important for consideration at that stage. The third conference, in March of this year, had before it a revision of this memorandum. The last conference, this third, resulted in the draft of a bill, which was sent to each participant for comment and suggestion, and the bill itself is before you. We would have no misunderstanding as to what this bill is. It is a bill resulting from the conference, but it is not a conference bill; for the conference did not draw it, nor did it by explicit vote or otherwise determine its precise provisions. It is rather a copyright office bill. The office submits it as embodying what, with the best counsel available, including the conferences, it deems worthy of your consideration, in accordance with your previously expressed desire. In calling the conferences and in submitting the draft it has proceeded upon your suggestion. Apart from the chapter relating to its own administration, it has no direct interest in the bill, except its general interest to secure a general amelioration of the law. It does not offer the bill to you as the unanimous decision of a council of experts, for it contains certain provisions as to which expert opinion as well as substan |