Arguments before the Committee on Patents of the House of Representatives Part 5

Mr. Clemens, I understand, has reached Was.h.i.+ngton, and hopes to be present at one of these sessions as a member of the council of our league. Mr. Bronson Howard, the president of the American Dramatists'

Club, and also a vice-president of this league, I hope will be present to speak for the dramatists. Mr. Sousa and Mr. Victor Herbert are here to-day representing musical composers. Mr. Frank D. Millet is here as the delegate of the National Academy of Design and of the Fine Arts Federation, and possibly Mr. Carl Bitter, president, or Mr. Daniel C.

French, ex-president of the National Sculptors' a.s.sociation, may also be here. We ask that a half hour be given to those gentlemen presently; and I shall occupy but five minutes or so of that time.

The conference, sir, proceeded at its first session on a memorandum which formed the basis for discussion, presented by the American Copyright League; and I mention that to say that that memorandum included two important suggestions which were not incorporated in the bill--one the suggestion that the bill should be, as it were, a group of bills, representing separately and distinctively the literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic varieties of copyrightable property. An honest endeavor was made to do that, but it proved not practicable and workable. Again, members of our council, Mr. Stedman and Mr. Clemens among them, desired very much that the authors should be safeguarded in their relations with publishers by certain insertions in the bill. It was held by the legal authorities that that was not a proper subject of introduction in a copyright code; and on those two points the American Copyright League, I think I am authorized to state, recedes from any possible dissension. And I say it, sir, because there are doubtless many points on which the several organizations would prefer to have additions or omissions.

A little girl I knew spoke of a compromise as something where everybody got what they did not want. Now, in that sense this bill is not a compromise. It represents, rather, the consensus of opinion of the originators of copyrightable property, of the reproducers, publishers and similar interests, and of representatives, as Mr. Putnam has told you, of various other interests. On behalf of the league we believe, sir, that you have before you a working basis for a just, broad, clear, workable copyright bill; and we feel confident that such a bill will emerge from your deliberations.

We ask you, sir, to keep in mind two vital points: First, that the rights of the producing cla.s.ses shall be first of all thought of, but not to the detriment of the great body of reproducers and readers, on whom the author cla.s.ses depend for the possibility of realizing from their productions. As has been said to you, copyright is on a different basis from patents, in that it not only does not interfere with the rights or privileges of others as succeeding inventors, but that the world is the better for any original work contributed by help of the copyright laws to the community without detriment to anyone, and therefore it should have a broader scope before you in copyright legislation than in patent legislation; and we ask that in that view, in that spirit, the rights of the producing cla.s.ses shall be kept in mind.

Secondly, sir, this is a very difficult and complicated question. Those of us who have met in conference have recognized most fully the care, fairness, and wise consideration which have been given to all interests by the copyright office and the difficulties under which a practical bill has been framed. We ask you, sir, in your considerations in the committee and in the discussions in Congress so far as they are shaped by the committee, that you will keep in mind, sir, the importance of keeping a consistent bill throughout these difficult provisions. The copyright office has been of the greatest service to all of us in that very function; and I have no doubt, sir, from our experience, that it will be of the greatest service to your committee.

The league had stood for a copyright commission instead of this conference. But when we find this bill, sir, presented as the result of only a year's work, and remember that the English copyright commission took years to produce a draft which has not yet, after nearly a generation, been enacted into law, we can not but express the greatest satisfaction with the result now before you. We do not feel, sir, that any bill can be presented to your committee which does not call for the most careful consideration, for protest from outside interests, and for discussion, not only in your committee and in the halls of Congress, but throughout the public. We do not feel that any such bill would be possible; and I wish very heartily, sir, to record the American copyright league as favoring the fullest discussion and the fullest consideration of any of what may be called the minority interests. We believe that the interests of the office are perfectly consistent with the interests of the public; and in that view, sir, we support most heartily, individually and as members of the conference, the bill which you have before you.

STATEMENT OF FRANK D. MILLET.

Mr. MILLET. I shall have very little to say, Mr. Chairman. The artists are interested in this bill because, as the committee undoubtedly understands, the copyright of a picture is often, almost always, more valuable to the artist than the original work--that is, of greater money value. We have had long experience with the law, and we have not found that we have been protected. So little protection has been afforded that it is no longer the habit for the artist to copyright his picture. We have gone out of the business of copyrighting, practically, as you will find if you will go to any exhibition, because we have not been able to get any relief in case our work had been infringed upon.

We have always objected to the copyright notice which we have been obliged to put on the picture, because it is considered a disfigurement. That is another reason why we have not copyrighted. That has been a very great loss to us as a cla.s.s. That has been one of the reasons why we prefer, many of us, to spend much of our time abroad.

If you will pardon me for a moment I will give a personal instance.

I have painted in England and in Europe over twenty years. I never had one bit of difficulty with my copyrights over there, and I have had considerable income from my copyrights; and I think $7 or $8 is about all the money I have ever gotten in America out of copyrights here.

Since the conferences began last winter two of my pictures have been reproduced by a journal in New York, one of them in color. They cut off my name and copyrighted the picture themselves. In the case of the other they left my copyright on and published it without my consent. I have absolutely no redress, because the law says that I can get a dollar for every copy found in their possession, and they were not fools enough to have any copies in their possession, of course. I relate this little personal tale, because that is what has been the experience of all the artists, painters, and sculptors.

We do not pretend to say that this bill, in these particular cases, or in the first case of notice, meets our highest desire, because we would like to have it exactly as it is abroad, no notice being required whatever. But we met our friends, our dearest foes, the reproducers, and made this compromise, which is satisfactory to us on the question of the notice, as to what we shall put on the picture without disfigurement, and we think that the bill is the best one that we could possibly agree to, and we are all of us fully in favor of the bill as it stands.

I thank you.

Mr. SULZER. Is the bill as it is drawn at present satisfactory to you?

Mr. MILLET. It is satisfactory to us.

Mr. SULZER. And you want it pa.s.sed just as it is?

Mr. MILLET. We would like to have it pa.s.sed as it is.

Mr. SULZER. That would protect the artists?

Mr. MILLET. As far as we can make out, that would protect us.

Mr. CURRIER. Is it the criminal remedy that is provided by this bill that would give the protection you need?

Mr. MILLET. That is one of the things.

Mr. BONYNGE. What are the new remedies given to the artists by the provisions of this bill?

Mr. MILLET. At the end of the bill you will find them.

Mr. CHANEY. Just state them from memory.

Mr. MILLET. There is a misdemeanor clause that we are very keen on, the same as for the dramatists. We do not see why it should not be a misdemeanor, to apply to us as well as to the dramatists--sections 23 and 25.

STATEMENT OF JOHN PHILIP SOUSA.

Mr. SOUSA. Mr. Chairman, I would much rather have my bra.s.s band here. I think it would be more appreciated than my words will be. [Laughter.]

Mr. CHANEY. We would rather have you, just now.

Mr. SOUSA. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to quote Fletcher, of Saltoun, who said that he cared not who made the laws of the land if he could write its songs.

We composers of America take the other view. We are very anxious as to who makes the laws of this land. We are in a very bad way. I think when the old copyright law was made, the various perforated rolls and phonograph records were not known, and there was no provision made to protect us in that direction. Since then, the talking machines have come out, and the claim is made that the record of sound is not a notation.

There are three ways for the composer to make a living by his music: By sight or by sound or by touch. The notation of my compositions or the compositions of any other composer for the blind must be entirely different from the ordinary, because it must be read by the sense of touch. The notation that is made for a combination of instruments is brought out by sound. The claim that is made about these records is that they can not be read by any notation--simply that no method has been found to read them up to the present time, but there will be. Just as the man who wanted to scan the heavens discovered a telescope to do it. No doubt there will be found a way to read these records.

We are entirely in favor of this bill. The provisions satisfy us, and we want to be protected in every possible form in our property. When these perforated-roll companies and these phonograph companies take my property and put it on their records they take something that I am interested in and give me no interest in it. When they make money out of my pieces I want a share of it.

Mr. SULZER. They are protected in their inventions?

Mr. SOUSA. Yes, sir.

Mr. SULZER. And why should you not be protected in yours?

Mr. SOUSA. That is my claim. They have to buy the bra.s.s that they make their funnels out of, and they have to buy the wood that they make the box out of, and the material for the disk; and that disk as it stands, without the composition of an American composer on it, is not worth a penny. Put the composition of an American composer on it and it is worth $1.50. What makes the difference? The stuff that we write.

Mr. BONYNGE. What is the protection by the terms of this bill that is given you?

Mr. SOUSA. That in any production of our music by any of these mechanical instruments they must make a contract with us or with our publishers; that they must pay us money for the use of our compositions.

The publishers of this country make contracts with the composers, and agree to give them a sum outright or a royalty on sales for each and every copy that they publish and sell.

The companies making records for talking machines take one copy of a copyrighted piece of music and produce by their method a thousand or more disks, cylinders, or perforated rolls. If they would buy one copy from my publishers and owners of my copyright and sell that one copy, I would have no objection; but they take the copyrighted copy and make what they claim is a noncopyrighted copy, sell it, and do not give the owner of the copyright a penny of royalty for its use; and they could not do this if the composer had not written it and the publisher had not published it, and I want to be paid for the use they make of my property.

Mr. WEBB. Does this affect records already made?

Mr. CURRIER. No; it does not affect existing copyrights.

Mr. SOUSA. No. That is a sop--I am willing to let it stand for the sake of the future, but I think it is wrong. That is a sop to them, the talking-machine companies, and hereafter they will make money after this law pa.s.ses on the pieces that I made before the law went into effect.

Mr. CHANEY. So that we will get "El Capitan" from the phonographs in various places?

Mr. SOUSA. Yes, sir; and I'll get nothing for it; and I am the man that made "El Capitan." [Laughter.]

I speak in the interest of the publishers and the composers, and some of them asked me to come here because I could talk from the heart, and I do. I am sure of what I say. There may be some interests opposed to the bill for selfish reasons, but these interests know the bill simply gives us rights we are ent.i.tled to.

As to the artists, Mr. Millet said that he got $8.75 for one of his pictures. You can take any catalogue of records of any talking machine company in this country and you will find from 20 to 100 of my compositions on it. I have yet to receive the first penny for the use of them.