Page:The copyright act, 1911, annotated.djvu/24

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(b) in the case of a dramatic work, to convert it into a novel or other non-dramatic work;

(c) in the case of a novel or other non-dramatic work, or of an artistic work, to convert it into a dramatic work, by way of performance in public or otherwise;

(d) in the case of a literary, dramatic, or musical work, to make any record, perforated roll, cinematograph film , or other contrivance by means of which the work may be mechanically performed or delivered ,

and to authorise any such acts as aforesaid.

This sub-section puts every work which is protected by the Act upon the same basis, and defines the author's right therein in very generous terms. Copyright, it will be noticed, now includes all the author's proprietary rights in his work, and has, in fact, become the droit d'auteur of the Frenchman, or the urheberrecht of the German. It includes all the rights formerly known as (1) common law proprietary right in unpublished works; (2) statutory copyright; (3) statutory performing right or play right. The definition is framed so as to secure that, whatsoever medium the author may select for giving expression to his work, the essential elements of the work which he a^ an author has created shall be protected from reproduction in the same or any other medium. Thus, the author who uses no other medium for the expression of his literary conception than that of oral utterance is protected not only against the repetition of it in that form.