Page:Copyright, Its History And Its Law (1912).djvu/134

 1902, in Mifflin v. Dutton, by the U.S. Supreme Court, that "there cannot be duplicate copyrights of the same book in different names." If one of the joint authors and not the other should apply for entry, the Copyright Office would in practice probably record the copyright claim on the presumption that the author was acting in the common interest; but if two joint authors applied simultaneously and severally, the question of ownership would have to be settled by the courts.

A corporate body, even though not incorporated under statute, is considered an author in the case of its own proceedings or similar publications, and in 1903 Justice Holmes rendered the decision of the U. S. Supreme Court in the case of Bleistein v. Donaldson Lith. Co., though the court was divided on the subject, that a copyright taken in the name of the Courier Lithographing Company, which was only the trade name of the complainant, was valid.

In the case of posthumous works, the person entitled to copyright would be the executor, administrator, or the heirs of the author, and the owner of an unpublished manuscript could probably enter and maintain copyright in the absence of other legal claimant.

The first important case under the new American code, in September, 1909, dealt with the question who may obtain copyright. On the report of the discovery of the North Pole, the New York Herald procured from Dr. Cook his account of his journey and copyrighted it on its publication in the Herald, — which copyright does not seem to have been questioned. Immediately thereafter came Commander Peary's account of his polar journey, for which the New York Times had contracted with him before his departure in the previous year. The Peary report was