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          Richard Rogers Bowker

  COPYRIGHT: ITS HISTORY AND ITS LAW.

  THE ARTS OF LIFE.
  OF BUSINESS.
  OF POLITICS.
  OF RELIGION.
  OF EDUCATION.

       HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

         BOSTON AND NEW YORK




             COPYRIGHT

       ITS HISTORY AND ITS LAW

        BEING A SUMMARY OF THE
  PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF COPYRIGHT
       WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO
     THE AMERICAN CODE OF 1909 AND
        THE BRITISH ACT OF 1911

                 BY

        RICHARD ROGERS BOWKER




         BOSTON AND NEW YORK
       HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
     The Riverside Press Cambridge
                1912




   COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY R. R. BOWKER

        ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
         FOR ALL COUNTRIES

       _Published March 1912_




FOREWORD


{Sidenote: Copyright progress}

The American copyright code of 1909, comprehensively replacing all previous
laws, a gratifying advance in legislation despite its serious restrictions
and minor defects, places American copyright practice on a new basis. The
new British code, brought before Parliament in 1910, and finally adopted in
December, 1911, to be effective July 1, 1912, marks a like forward step for
the British Empire, enabling the mother country and its colonies to
participate in the Berlin convention. Among the self-governing Dominions
made free to accept the British code or legislate independently, Australia
had already adopted in 1905 a complete new code, and Canada is following
its example in the measure proposed in 1911, which will probably be
conformed to the new British code for passage in 1912. Portugal has already
in 1911 joined the family of nations by adherence to the Berlin convention,
Russia has shaped and Holland is shaping domestic legislation to the same
end, and even China in 1910 decreed copyright protection throughout its
vast empire of ancient and reviving letters. The Berlin convention of 1908
strengthened and broadened the bond of the International Copyright Union,
and the Buenos Aires convention of 1910, which the United States has
already ratified, made a new basis for copyright protection throughout the
Pan American Union, both freeing authors from formalities beyond those
required in the country of origin. Thus the American dream of 1838 of "a
universal republic of letters whose foundation shall be one just law" is
well on the way toward realization.

{Sidenote: Field for the present treatise}

In this new stage of copyright development, a comprehensive work on
copyright seemed desirable, especially with reference to the new American
code. Neither Eaton S. Drone nor George Haven Putnam were disposed to enter
upon the task, which has therefore fallen to the present writer. He hopes
that his participation for the last twenty-five years in copyright
development,--during which, as editor of the _Publishers' Weekly_ and of
the _Library Journal_, he has had occasion to keep watch of copyright
progress, and as vice-president of the American (Authors) Copyright League,
he has taken part in the copyright conferences and hearings and in the
drafting of the new code,--will serve to make the present volume of use to
his fellow members of the Authors Club and to like craftsmen, as well as to
publishers and others, and aid in clarifying relations and preventing the
waste and cost of litigation among the coordinating factors in the making
of books and other forms of intellectual property.

{Sidenote: Authorities and acknowledgments}

The present work includes some of the historical material of the
Bowker-Solberg volume of 1886, "Copyright, its law and its literature."
This material has been verified, extended and brought up to date,
especially in the somewhat detailed sketch of the copyright discussions and
legislation resulting in the "international copyright amendment" of 1891
and the code of 1909. The volume is in this respect practically, and in
other respects entirely new. It has had the advantage of the cordial
co-operation of the copyright authorities at Washington, especially the
Librarian of Congress, Herbert Putnam, and the Register of Copyrights,
Thorvald Solberg; also of helpful courtesy from the Canadian Minister of
Agriculture in the recent Laurier administration, Sidney Fisher, and the
Canadian Registrar of Copyrights, P. E. Ritchie, and of Prof. Ernest
Roethlisberger, editor of the _Droit d'Auteur_, and one of the best
authorities on international copyright. This acknowledgment of obligation
is not to be taken as assuming for the work official sanction and