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COPYRIGHT

Need of general re- Tision

Ad interim copyright act, 1905

friends of copyright, who desired rather that the United States might grant unrestricted international copyright and become a signatory power in the con- vention of Berne, it was thought fair and right not to attempt broader legislation for some years. Copy- right legislation had become, however, confused and uncertain in the multiplicity of statutes, and the need of revision was emphasized in annual and special re- ports by Thorvald Solberg, an expert in copyright and skilled bibliographer, who had been appointed Register of Copyrights on the creation of that office in 1897 with the approval of the Librarian of Con- gress, Herbert Putnam, who had been appointed in 1899. In 1903 the Register of Copyrights presented a special report on copyright legislation which was made part of the report of the Librarian of Congress for 1903,. and accompanied by a list of all copyright statutes by the original states and by the United States, the text of the revised statutes with notations of later provisions and a list of foreign copyright laws in force, which three documents were also published as separate pamphlets.

In 1905, March 3, an act was passed granting ad interim protection for one year to works in a foreign language published in a foreign country, pending manufacture in America within one year of the origi- nal work or a translation thereof. This protection was conditioned on the deposit within thirty days from publication in a foreign country of a copy of the foreign edition bearing copyright notice and a reservation in the following form: "Published ,

19 . Privilege of copyright in the United States re- served under the Act approved March 3, 1905, by ," — which was also to be printed on all copies of the foreign work sold or distributed in the United States.