Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/227

 220 FEDERAL REPORTER. �published, on the title page or the page immediately following, if it be a book; or if a map, chart, musical composition, print, eut, engraving, photograph, paiuting, drawing, chromo, statue, etatuary, or model or design intended to be perfeoted or completed as a work of the fine arts, by inscribing upon some portion of the face or front thereof, or on the face of the substance on which the same shall be mounted, the fol- lowing words: "Entered according to act of congress," etc. �It is, I think, sufficiently obvious that the words "or other article," in section 4963, following the enumeration, "any book, map, chart, musical composition, priut, eut, engraving or photograph," do not mean any article whatsoever, whether copyrightable or not, but must be taken as limited to other articles, which in the preceding sections are described as the proper subject of copyright, a part of which only are expressly enumerated in this section; that the word "article" here is used in the same sense in which it is employed in the other sections. If it had been the purpose of congress to impose a penalty for using this notice on any article whatever, there was no occasion for the enumeration of "book, map, chart," etc., in section 4963. That enumeration should have been avoided as tending to mislead. The meaning would much more clearly have been expressed without any such enumera- tion. There is also no apparent object or obvious reason of public policy in imposing a penalty for using this notice on any article not subject to copyright. The purpose of the statute seems to be to protect persons entitled to copyrights from their privilege being impaired, cheapeiied, and lessened in value by the unauthorized assumption of the privilege by persons not entitled thereto. �The offence is deceiving the public by the false assertion of a valuable privilege to which a party is not entitled. But it is obvious that the public oannot be deceived by putting such a notice on articles not the proper subject of copyright, any more than they can be deceived by putting the mark "patent" on an article not patentable. There is, therefore, no reason for extending the terms of this statute, which is penal and to be strictly construed, beyond the case of articles subject to ����