Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/397

Rh assignment, and $1 for every copy of an assignment furnished, Another essential condition to valid copyright is publication, and tho work must be first published in the United States ; but a contemporaneous publication abroad will not prejudice the author s rights. The production must also be original and innocent in character. Copy right will not vest in an unpublished work. But the statute provides that every person who shall print or pub lish any manuscript, without the consent of the author or proprietor, if the latter is a citizen or resident of the United States, shall be liable for damages. There is nothing in the Act to exclude a resident assignee of a foreign author from the benefits of this provision. Copyrights pass to heirs and are assignable in law by any instrument of writing. Every assignment must be recorded in the office of the librarian of Congress within sixty days after its execution, in default of which it becomes void as against any subsequent purchaser or mortgagee for a valu able consideration without notice. The existing statute provides that if any person without due authority shall print, publish, or import a copyrighted book, or knowing it to be so printed, published, or imported shall sell or offer it for sale, he shall forfeit every copy to the proprietor and pay such damages as may be recovered in a civil action. In case of piracy of a map, chart, musical composition, print, cut, engraving, photograph, or chromo, the offender is made liable to forfeit the plates and every sheet copied or printed, and to pay $1 for every sheet found in his possession either printing, printed, copied, published, importad, or exposed for sale. For every pirated copy of a painting, statue, or statuary found in his possession, or which he has sold or offered for sale, the offender must pay $10. The injured person may obtain from a court of equity an injunction against the publication and sale of the pirated work, and may recover at law the damages sustained by such publication. All actions at law and suits in equity under the copyright statutes must be brought in the circuit or district courts of the United States, except in the District of Columbia or any territory where the proper tribunal is the Supreme Court. Appeal lies to the Supreme Court of the United States. All actions for forfeitures or penalties must be brought within two years after the cause of action has arisen. Redress for the invasion of common law rights in unpublished works must be sought in a State court, unless the parties to the con troversy are citizens of different States, in which case the courts of the United States have jurisdiction.

Stage right in the United States.—Until 185G there was no statute giving to dramatists control over the public representation of their plays. This want was met by the Act of August 18 of that year, which was passed expressly to confer upon the author or owner of a dramatic composition the sole liberty of performing, or causing it to ba performed, in public ; and any one infring ing this right was made liable to damages in a sum riot less than $100 for the first and $50 for every subsequent unauthorized performance. The provisions of this Act have been held to apply only to cases in which copyright was secured under the Act of 1831 ; and as the benefits of that law were by express words limited to citizen or resident authors, foreign dramatists acquired no rights by the statute of 1856. The Act of 1870 gives to dramatists, besides the exclusive right of publishing in print, the sole liberty of representing their dramatic compositions on the stage, and declares that any person who publicly represents a copyrighted dramatic composition, without authority, shall be liable to damages in a sum not less than $100 for the first and $50 for each subsequent performance. This right is secured by copyrighting the dramatic composition as a book and endures for the same term as does the copy right in the book, The Act must be construed as giving the sole liberty of representation only in cases where the exclusive right of publication has been secured. In other words, the copyright in the printed production is made to include the right of public representation. As the former can be acquired only by citizens and residents, foreign dramatists and their assignees, as under the Act of 1856, are excluded from the benefits of the statutes. There is no statutory provision, as in England, giving to either native or foreign dramatists the exclusive right to represent their manuscript plays. While foreign dramatists are entitled to no statutory protection whatever, their manuscript plays are protected by the common law. In this respect the rights of native and foreign dramatists are the same. Such protection ceases when the play is published. When published in print the owner s rights are lost, unless in the case of a citizen, protected by statute. Whether the authorized public performance of a manuscript play, unpro tected by statutory copyright, is such a publication as will give to any ne, without licence from the owner, the right either to represent it on the stage or to publish it in print, is a question which is not determined by statute, as in England, but is left entirely to the courts. It has been much discussed in several leading cases since 1860 ; and its importance is enhanced by the fact that many, if not most, of the dramas which American managers are expected and even required to provide for an exacting public and a critical press are from the pens of English and French play wrights. It is well settled that the public performance of a manuscript drama is not such a publication as will invalidate a copyright subsequently obtained by the author ; and that no one, without leave, may publish in print, or publicly represent the play, if obtained by stenography, the use of writing, or in any other way than through the memory of one or more persons who have witnessed its lawful representation. The theory has been advanced, and has received some judicial approval, that the owner of an uncopyrighted manuscript play cannot lawfully prevent another from publicly representing it, when the latter has obtained a copy through the memory of any person who has witnessed the authorized performance. This doctrine is supported by a single case decided in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in 1860, Its soundness has been questioned by high authority, and there is little doubt that when the direct issue shall be presented for judicial deter mination such unlicensed use of the play will be held to be piracy. It may be regarded as conceded that tho courts would not hesitate to declare unauthorized publication in print to be an invasion of the owner s rights. Property in unpublished musical compositions, lectures, sermons, works of arts, &c., are governed by the samo principles that apply in the case of dramatic productions. There is no statute, as in England, regulating the author s rights in manuscript lectures. The writer of an unpub lished letter, whether possessing literary value or not, may prevent at common law its unauthorized publication by the receiver, unless publication is necessary to protect the latter against injurious representations made by tho former. (—)  COQUEREL, (1820-1875), son of, noticed below, a minister of the French Protestant Church, was born at Amsterdam in 1820, At an early age he succeeded his father as editor of Le Lien, and he held this post till 1852. In that year he took part in establishing the Nouvelle Revue de Theologie, which had the distinction of being the first periodical organ of scientific theology published in France. Meanwhile he had gained a high reputation as an eloquent and earnest preacher, and especially as the advocate of religious freedom in opposition to the imposition of tests. Advancing beyond his father's 