Page:Howell v. Miller.pdf/3

Rh of the rights of the plaintiff under the copyright laws of the United States, and will work irreparable injury to those rights. The circumstances under which the new compilation was prepared for publication and distribution are these: The constitution of Michigan of 1850 forbade any general revision of the laws to be thereafter made, and provided that, when a reprint thereof became necessary, the legislature in joint convention should appoint “a suitable person to collect together such acts or parts of acts as are in force, and without alteration arrange them under appropriate heads and titles”; and that the laws so arranged should “be submitted to two commissioners appointed by the governor, for examination, and if certified by them to be a correct compilation of all general laws in force, shall be printed in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.” Article 18, § 15. There were two authorized compilations after the adoption of the constitution of 1850,—the Cooley compilation of 1857, and the Dewey compilation of 1871. In 1882–83 Howell published the first and second volumes of his compilation; and in 1883 the legislature of Michigan passed an act providing that the general laws of the state, as collected and arranged in those volumes, should be received and admitted in all courts and proceedings, and by all officers, “as evidence of the existing laws thereof, with like effect as if published under and by the authority of the state.” Sess. Laws 1883, p. 8; 2 How. Ann. St. p. iv. In 1893, Howell published his third volume, known as the “Supplement.” By an act passed by the Michigan legislature in 1895 it was provided that all the general laws of the state should be collected and compiled (by a compiler to be appointed by the legislature), without alteration, under appropriate heads and titles, with marginal notes, references, index, and complete digest of the decisions of the supreme court of the state relating to such general laws; the compiler’s work to be completed on or before the convening of the legislature of 1897, and placed in the hands of the governor, after having been certified to be correct by two commissioners appointed by him. The compensation of the compiler was fixed at $6,000. The legislature of 1897 was directed to provide for the publication and binding of such recompilation in such manner and form as was deemed best. Sess. Laws Mich. 1895, Act No. 268. The defendant Miller, having been previously selected by the state legislature, duly qualified as compiler under the act of 1895, and entered upon the work prescribed therein. His labors having been partially completed, so far as the manuscript was concerned, the legislature, by an act passed March 10, 1897, provided for the completion, printing, binding, distribution, and sale of said compilation. By that act it was provided that Miller’s compilation—after the general laws enacted by that session had been incorporated into it—should be printed, under the supervision of the compiler, “by the state printer as other state printing is done,” with a full and complete index, by the consecutive section numbers, in pages of the size and measurement of Howell’s Annotated Statutes, with annotations to each section, set in one-half the measure of the text, and arranged in two columns on the page, all on paper of a specified kind,