Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/741

 MiEBS V. OALIiAGHAN, 729 �the majority of the court, because the court retiiaii4e<i thô case for the purpose of ascertaining wheth^r the reporter had complied with the acts of oongress ; something which clearly ought not, to have been done, provided the court was of the opinion that in no event was the reporter entitled to a copy- right in his reports. Every reporter of the supreme court since has claimed copyright, — Peters, Howard, Black, Wal- lace, and Otto — and so, it is believed, has every reporter inthis country, state and federal. It seems to me, therefore, that ■we must assume, in the absence of any express legislation by the state indicating a contrary principle, that the reporter is entitled to a copyright in his volumes of reports for what is the work of his own mind and hand, — the head-notes, the statements which he hasmade in each case of the ;f acts, And of the arguments of counsel, — notwithstanding it inay be true that he can have no copyright in the opinions of the couit. �The copyright of these volumes of reports existed, if at ail, under the act of congress of 1831, which provided that any one, in order to be entitled to the benefit of the act, must deposit before publication a printed copy of the title of the book in the clerk's office of the district court of the district where the author or proprietor should reside ; and, within three months from the publication of the book, a copy of the same must be delivered to the clerk of said district. Section 4. He must cause to be inserted in each copy of the boOk, on the title-page or the page immediately foUowiug, the fol- lowingwords: "Entered according to Act of Congress, in �the year, by A. B., in the Clerk's Office of the District �Court of : ." Section 5. �Varions objections are made by the defendants to the copy- right because of non-compliance by the plaintiff with the provisions of the act of congress. It appears that 553 copies of volume 32 were delivered by Mr. Preeman, the reporter, to the state on October 2, 1865, while the proper certificate of that volume was not delivered to the clerk of the district court until January 17, 1866; and it is insisted that the delivery of these volumes to the state oonstituted a publica- tion. There seems to be no further evidence on the subject ����