Page:Federal Cases, Volume 15.djvu/31

 [15 Fed. Cas. page 27] . Legal proprietors, although not authors, may recover of persons who print or publish any mannscript. owned by such proprietors, without their consent, all damages occasioned by such in- jury. . Where services in editing and preparing a certain work for publication were, by agreement, gratuitous as to two editions thereof, it was held that the contributions of the editor became the property of the proprietor of the work just as effectually as if me editor had been paid for his work on those editions, and the title to the same vested in the proprietor of the- original work, as the labor was done, to the extent of the gift, subject to the trust in favor of the donor as neces- sarily implied by the terms of the arrangement. . Delivery was made as the work was per- formed, and the proprietor of the book needed no other muniment of title than what was acquired when the agreement was executed. . The proprietor needed no assignment from the contributor, because the contributor had no title to the contributions, nor any inchoate right of copyright in the editions of the work. . In order to the obtaining of a copyright, deposit must be made before publication, if the subject-matter is « book, of a copy of such book in the clerk's oflSce of the district court, and the applicant must give information of copyright be- ing secured, by causing to be inserted, in tie sev- eral copies of each and every edition published, during the term secured, on the title-page, or page succeeding, the following words: "Entered according to the act of congress, in the year, by A. B., in the clerk's office of the district court of" (as the case may be). . Omission to comply with these require- ments renders the copyright invalid. . Section 5 of the act does not require that the same notice be inserted in the several copies of each and every edition published during the term secured, so that the second and every sub- sequent edition may correctly specify the date of the original entry. . Acts of congress are construed by the rules of the common law, and the construction should be such as to carry into effect the true intent and meaning of the legislature; but the province of construction can never extend beyond the lan- guage employed as applied to the subject-matter and the surrounding circumstances. . Change of date in the notice required in case of successive editions of the same book is not required by section 5, but the meaning of the provision is, that a new notice in the same pre- scribed form shall be given in every improved edition published during the term. . When the original edition is published, com- pliance with that requirement is protection for that edition, but not for a second edition with notes, or any succeeding edition with improve- ments. . Copyrights to editions of a work other than the original one are granted for additions to or emendations of the work, and every copyright should bear date of the day when secured. . Subsequent editions without diange or ad- dition should have the same entry as the first; subsequent editions with notes or improvements are new books within the meaning of ^e copy- right acts. . Copyrights, like patents, afford no protec- tion to what was not in existence at the time they were granted. . Protection is afforded by virtue of a copy- right of a book, if duly granted, to all the matter the book contained when the printed copy of the same was deposited in the office of the clerk of the district court. _ 33. Whenever a renewal is obtained under sec- tion 2 of the copyright act, the requirement is, (Case No. 8,136) LAWRENCE that the title of Ihe work so secured shall be a second time recorded, but there is nothing to show that the date of the original entry shall be speci- fied in each successive edition. . The agreement in this case was that IMrs. 'heaton, who held the legal title of the copy- rights, should make no use of the notes in a new edition without the written consent of the com- plainant, and that she would give him the right to make any use of the same he might see fit, which was in all respects equivalent to a contract to transfer and assign to him the legal title to the copyrights. . Equity would have compelled the execution of the formal instrument therein stipulated, if the right to demand it had not bfeen waived by the complainant. . In this case. Jfrs. Wheaton, by virtue of the agreement with the complainant, becamu the absolute owner of the notes as they were pre- pared, so far as respects the editions in question; and she also acquired therewith the right to copy- right the same for the protection of the property; but she did not acquire thereby any right or titie, legal or equitable, to use the notes in a third edition of the annotated work without the con- sent of the complainant. . Literary property, even when secured by copyright, differs in many respects from property m personal chattels, and the tenure of the proper- ty is governed by somewhat different rules; but the nature and tenure of copyright property is still more unlike the tenure of other property, be- fore the copyright is taken out, and while the - right to that protection is inchoate. . Title to the notes or improvements prepared for a new edition of a book previously copv- righted may, in certain cases, be acquired by the proprietor of a book from an employ^ by virtue of a contract of employment, and without any written assignment. [Cited in Black v. Henry G. Allen Co., 42 Fed. 625.] . But such cannot be held to be a mere license, when, as in this case, the contract was that the proprietor of the book should take the exclusive right to the contributions for two successive edi- tions, together with the right to copyright the same for the protection of the property. . The inchoate right of the copyright passed to the proprietor of the book by the same arrange- ment. . The inchoate right is incapable of any other limitation than that prescribed by the copyright act, so that the proprietor of the book in this case took out the copyright in the usual form. She took it out for her own protection and for that of the complainant^ when her property in the notes should cease. . In this case it was Jield that the complain- ant, in the view of a court of equity, was the equitable owner of the notes, including the ar- rangement of the same, and the mode in which they are therein combined and connected with the test, and of the copyrights taken out by the pro- prietor of the book for the protection of the prop- erty. . Whatever puts a party upon inquiry is in equity sufficient notice. . Ordinary prudence is required of everv per- son dealing with trust property. If he fajls to investigate when put upon inquirv, he is charge- able with all the knowledge it is reasonable to suppose he would have acquired if he had per- formed his duty. . Constructive notice is held sufficient upon the ground that when a party is about to perform an act by which he has reason to believe that the rights of third persons may be affected, an in- quiry as to the state of facts is a moral duty, and diligence an act of justice.