Page:Copyright, Its History And Its Law (1912).djvu/399

 INTERNATIONAL IN AMERICA 367

On January 27, 1905, Senator Kittredge announced Copyright (in Senate Report 3380) that the Committee on conferences, Patents purposed to "attempt a codification of the ^"os-o copyright laws at the next session of the Congress" and in a letter to the Librarian of Congress suggested that he call a conference of the several classes inter- ested in such codification. Accordingly on April 10, the Librarian of Congress announced such a confer- ence, of which sessions were held at the City Club in New York, May 31 to June 2, and November i to 4, 1905, and in the Library of Congress, Washington, March 13 to 16, 1906. At these conferences, organ- izations representing authors, dramatic and musical as well as literary, artists, publishers, printers, litho- graphers, librarians, the legal profession and the public, participated through delegates, and discussed first a basic memorandum presented by the Ameri- can (Authors) Copyright League and thereafter suc- cessive drafts of a copyright measure prepared by the Register of Copyrights. As a result of these discus- sions, presided over by Librarian Putnam, the final draft was prepared under the immediate direction of the Librarian of Congress, which became the basis of the bill "to amend and consolidate the acts respecting copyright" introduced into the Senate by Senator Kittredge (Senate bill 6380) and into the House by Chairman Frank D. Currier (H. R. bill 19853)- May 31, 1906.

In connection with these conferences, a number of "Copyright valuable documents were prepared by Register Sol- in Congress, berg and published through the Copyright Office, ' 9-1904 among them a chronological record of " Copyright in Congress, 1789-1904," with bibliography, sum- marizing all Congressional proceedings in relation to copyright through the second session of the Fifty- eighth Congress.