Page:Copyright, Its History And Its Law (1912).djvu/251

. It meant and means evidently that authors shall have exclusive rights to the benefits of their wiitings, the usufruct of the property they have created, and that means practically a monopoly control over all copies or reproductions from such writings, whether the copies are in handwriting, printing, or any other form. A musical score is definitely a writing, for it is even more than a literary manuscript, originally in the personal handwriting of the composer himself, without the intervention of a stenographer or a typewriting machine. Therefore, if the narrowest meaning of the word ' writings ' should be interpreted into the Constitution such as would exclude sculptures and other works which are admittedly proper and legal subjects of copyright, it would still specifically include musical and dramatic as well as literary manuscripts. There is no specification in the Constitution confining the exclusive rights over writings to copies in handwriting or print or any other stated process of reproduction; in fact, the Constitution does not use the word 'copyright' or in any way limit by specification the comprehensiveness of the exclusive rights Congress is thus authorized to secure. Indeed, Congress in the copyright laws has interpreted the Constitution to cover the several artistic or reproductive processes from time to time developed or invented; thus in the law of 1865 the provisions of the copyright laws were extended to include ' photographs,' which did not exist at the time of the adoption of the Constitution—which word specifically means ' lightwritings ' as phonograph records specifically mean 'soundwritings.'

"The position taken by the American Copyright League is that an author is literally entitled to the exclusive right, that is, the exclusive benefit, in his writings, in whatever form the writings, that is, his