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COPYRIGHT

Copies re- maining unsold

American confirmation

publisher had procured from an author the copyright for a limited term, in that case four years, he had the right to sell, after the expiration of the contract term, copies printed in good faith within the term, though the court indicated that if there had been an excessive printing of the work with the evident purpose of stock- ing up for sale after expiration of the contract, such course would not be permitted. This precedent in- dicates that a publisher would have the right to sell copies printed during the original term of copyright and remaining in stock, even if an author under the renewal provision of the American code exercised the right to make arrangements with another publisher for the renewal term. To like effect it was decided in the English case of Taylor v. Pillow, in 1 869, by Vice Chancellor James, that a copyright proprietor as- signing the copyright might thereafter dispose of copies of a song remaining unsold, in the absence of stipulations to the contrary. These questions are usu- ally decided in advance in American publishing prac- tice by provision in the contract between author and publisher that copies remaining unsold at the end of the contract term may be reclaimed by the author at a stated price — and some such provision is always desirable.

The same doctrine was upheld in the American case of Pulte V. Derby, in 1852, in the U. S. Circuit Court by Judge McLean, who held that where the contract for publishing a second edition provided that the publishers might print as many copies as they could sell, the publishers might make successive printings in that edition, and that the use of the words "third edi- tion " on the title-page did not terminate the arrange- ment. The author could not meantime publish otherwise, but the publishers, who held legal title to the copyright within the terms of the contract, could