Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/390

Rh 360 COPYRIGHT What would be a fair term may depend on a variety of considerations, but the chance or certainty of copyrights becoming publishers property is certainly not one of them. Macau! ay s speech convinced the House of Commons, and Talfourd s bill was defeated. Lord Mahon s bill in 1842 reduced the proposed period to twenty-five years after death ; Macaulay proposed forty-two as the fixed number in all cases. It was at Macaulay s suggestion that the clause against the possible suppression of books by the owners of copyright was introduced. Under a longer period of copyright the danger apprehended might possibly become a real one ; at present we are not aware of any complaint having been made to the judicial committee under this section. Art copy- The preceding narrative records the changes in the right law of copyright in books only. In the meantime the principle had been extended to other forms of mental work. The 8 Geo. II. c. 13 is an Act &quot; for the encourage ment of the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints by vesting the properties thereof in the inventors and engravers during the time therein mentioned.&quot; It gave to every person who should 41 invent and design, engrave, etch, or work in mezzotinto or chiaro-oscuro, or from his own works and invention should cause to be designed and engraved, etched, or worked in mezzotinto or chiaro-oscuro, any historical or other print or prints, which shall be truly engraved with the name of the proprietor on each plate and printed on every such print or prints,&quot; a copyright for fourteen years the period fixed by th3 statute of Anne, and inflicts a penalty on those who engrave, &c., as aforesaid, without the consent of the proprietor. The 7 Geo. III. c. 38 extended the protection to those who should engrave, &c., any print taken from any picture, drawing, model, or sculpture, either ancient or modern, in like manner as if such print had been graved or drawn from the original design of such graver, etcher, or draughtsman ; and in both cases the period is fixed at twenty-eight instead of fourteen years. Ten years later a further remedy was provided by giving a special action on the case against persons infringing the copyright. By the 38 Geo. III. c. 71 the sole right of making models and casts was vested in the original proprietor for the period of fourteen years. Stage right. Stage right was first protected by the 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 15, which provided that the author (or his assignee) of any tragedy, comedy, play, opera, farce, or other dramatic piece or entertainment composed, or which should thereafter be composed, and not printed or published by the author, should have as his own property the sole liberty of representing or causing to be represented at any place of dramatic entertainment in the British dominions any such production, and should be deemed the proprietor thereof ; and that the author of any such production printed and published within the ten years preceding the passing of the Act, or which should thereafter be so published, should have sole liberty of representation for twenty-eight years from the passing of the Act, or the first publication respectively, and further during the natural life of the author if he survived that period. T,o-tures The publication of lectures without consent of the an! authors or their assignees is prohibited by 5 and 6 Will. armous. jy c ^ Thig Act exceptg from itg p rov i s i ons _(l) lectures of which notice his not been given two days before their delivery to two justices of the peace living within five miles of the place of delivery, and (2) lectures delivered iu universities and other public institutions. Sermons by clergy of the Established Church are believed to fall within tins exception. Music. Musical compositions are protected by a section of the Copyright Act 5 and G Vic. c. 45 above mentioned. The increased period of copyright fixed by that Act is extended to the right of representing dramatic pieces and musical compositions the first public representation or perform ance being the equivalent of the first publication of a book. In such cases the right of representation is not conveyed by the assignment of the copyright only. Lithographs, hitherto a doubtful subject, were brought Lit within the provisions relating to prints and engravings by 8 ra a clause of the 15 and 16 Viet. c. 12. Lastly, in 1862, an Act was passed, 25 and 26 Viet. c. Co] 68, by which the author of every original painting, drawing, l )ai and photograph, and his assigns, obtained the exclusive right of copying, engraving, reproducing, and multiplying it, and the design thereof, for the term of the natural life of the author and seven years after his death. The Acts relating to copyright of designs will be noticed below. We may now notice a few of the more important prin ciples developed and applied by courts of justice in admi nistering the law of copyright. One of them is that there can be no copyright in any but innocent publications. Books of an immoral or irreligious tendency have been Ira repeatedly decided to be incapable of being made the P u subject of copyright. In a case (Lawrence v. Smith) before K Lord Eldon, an injunction had been obtained against a pirated publication of the plaintiff s Lectures OH Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man, which the judge refused to continue, &quot; recollecting that the immortality of the soul is one of the doctrines of the Scriptures, and con sidering that the law does not give protection to those who contradict the Scriptures.&quot; The same judge refused iu 1822 to restrain a piracy of Lord Byron s Cain, and Don Juan was refused protection in 1823. It would appear from a recent case, arising out of a different subject matter, 1 that the courts are still disposed to enforce these principles. To refuse copyright in such cases is futile as a mode of punishment or repression, inasmuch as it directly opens up a wider circulation to the objectionable works. When the authorship of a book is misrepresented with intent to deceive the public, copyright will not be recog nized. The writer of private letters sent to another person may Pi in general restrain their publication. It was urged in some le1 of the cases that the sender had abandoned his property in the letter by the act of sending ; but this was denied by Lord Hardwicke, who held that at most the receiver only might take some kind of joint property in the letter along with the author. Judge Story, in the American case of Folsom v. Marsh, states the law as follows : &quot; The author of any letter or letters, and his representatives, whether they are literary letters or letters of business, possess the sole and exclusive copyright therein ; and no person, neither those to whom they are addressed, nor other persons, have any right or authority to publish the same upon their own account or for their own benefit.&quot; But there may be special occasions justifying such publication. A kind of property in unpublished works, not created by Ui the copyright Acts, has been recognized by the courts. P&quot; The leading case on the subject is Prince Albert v. Strange ^ (2 De Gex and Smale s Reports). Copies of etchings by the Queen and Prince Albert, which had been lithographed for private circulation, fell into the hands of the defendant, a London publisher, who proposed to exhibit them, and issued a catalogue entitled A Descriptive Catalogue of the lioyal Victoria and Albert Gallery of Etchings. The Court of Chancery restrained the publication of the catalogue, holding that property in mechanical works, or works of art, 1 Cowan v. Milbourn, Law Reports, 2 Exchequer 230, in which it was held that a contract to let a room for lectures might be broken by the lessor on finding that the proposed lectures were of an irreligious, blasphemous, and illegal character.