Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/740

 728 FEDEBAIi REPORTER. �Messrs. Ewell and Denslow, who were employed by the prin- cipal defendants, Messrs. Callaghan & Co., to edit those vol- umes. It is also said that the plaintiff has acquiesced in the publication of the volumes of the defendants, and that he has lost the right to maintain a suit by his own laches ; and, lastly, that the plaintiff has been adjudicated a bankrupt, and therefore cannot maintain this action, It will be observed that the plaintiff claims through a purchase from the reporter. He was an offieer of the state, and prepared the volumes un- der the authority of lavf, and it is insisted, beoause he was a publie offieer and acted in an officiai capacity, that he had no copyright in these volumes. In one aspect of the case there would seem to be great force in this objection. For example, if an adequate compensation was paid by the state to the reporter for the work done by him in preparing vol- umes of reports, then whatever property there was in the volumes arising from the labors of the reporter ought to be- long to the state and not to him ; but I cannot find that view was taken of the case by the state and the court in the ap- pointment of the reporter at that time. On the contrary, it seems to have been considered that the reporter was entitled to any profits which might arise from the sale of these vol- umes, and that they constituted a part of the perqnisites of his office. He was appointed under the authority conferred by section 20 of chapter 29 of the Eevised Statutes of 1845, which required the court to appoint a reporter. Mr. Free- man was appointed under the act of 1863, and re-appointed in 1869, and then there appears to have been no regular sal- ary. The office seems to have been different then from what it is now, when, it is said, adequate compensation isgivenby the state to the reporter for the services performed by him. �The case of Wheator} v. Peters, 8 Peters, 591, as construed by the courts and the profession, has always been supposed to decide that Mr. Wheaton had a copyright in his reports, provided he had complied with the law then in force upon the subject. It is true that a majority of the court does not dis- tinctly assert that he had that right, but it appears tobe nec- essarily implied from the whole reasoning in the opinion of ����