Page:Copyright, Its History And Its Law (1912).djvu/214

 judges and in legal text-books. The dramatic copyright act of 1833, known as Bulwer-Lytton's act, a clumsy attempt to clear up earlier uncertainty, provided that the author of " any tragedy, comedy, play, opera, farce, or any other dramatic piece or entertainment, composed, and not printed and published," shall have " the sole liberty of representing in any part of the British Dominions"; "and the author of any such production, printed and published," shall, "until the end of twenty-eight years from . . . such first publication" or for life, have "the sole liberty of representing . . . as aforesaid." The general copyright act of 1842 specifically applied this previous act also to "musical compositions" and enacted "that the sole liberty of representing or performing . . . any dramatic piece or musical composition" shall "endure ... for the term in this act provided for . . . copyright in books," that is, for fortytwo years or life and seven years; and the provisions of the act as to copyright and registration were extended to representing or performing, "save and except that the first public representation or performance of any dramatic piece or musical composition shall be deemed equivalent in the construction of this act to the first publication of any book." The "copyright (musical compositions) act" of 1882 added the requirement, that in the case of a musical composition, to retain the performing right, notice of reservation should be printed on the title-page of every published copy, and the act further provided that the proprietor of the performing right, if the owner of the copyright be another person, may require him to print such notice of reservation, for neglect of which he shall forfeit twenty pounds.

Thus common law r^hts, it would seem, in an unpublished and unperformed dramatic or musical