Arguments before the Committee on Patents of the House of Representatives Part 6

There is another point to consider. These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy--I was born in this town--in front of every house in the summer evenings you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or the old songs. To-day you hear these infernal machines going night and day. [Laughter.] We will not have a vocal chord left.

[Laughter.] The vocal chords will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape. The vocal chords will go because no one will have a chance to sing, the phonograph supplying a mechanical imitation of the voice, accompaniment, and effort.

On this river, when I was a young man, we went out boating and the music of young voices filled the air.

Last summer and the summer before I was in one of the biggest yacht harbors of the world, and I did not hear a voice the whole summer.

Every yacht had a gramophone, a phonograph, an aeolian, or something of the kind. They were playing Sousa marches, and that was all right, as to the artistic side of it [laughter], but they were not paying for them, and, furthermore, they were not helping the technical development of music. Go to the men that manufacture the instruments that are nearest the people--the banjo, the guitar, and the mandolin--and every one of them will tell you that the sale of those instruments has fallen off greatly. You can not develop music without these instruments, the country singing school, and the country bra.s.s band. Music develops from the people, the "folk songs," and if you do not make the people executants, you make them depend on the machines.

Mr. CURRIER. Since the time you speak of, when they used to be singing in the streets----

Mr. SOUSA. Well, Mr. Currier, I am 50 years old----

Mr. CURRIER. I was just going to ask you: Since that time, the law has been pa.s.sed to protect the authors of musical compositions, which would prohibit that. Is not that so?

Mr. SOUSA. No, sir; you could always do it.

Mr. CURRIER. Any public performance is prohibited, is it not, by that law?

Mr. SOUSA. You would not call that a public performance.

Mr. CURRIER. But any public performance is prohibited by the law of 1897?

Mr. SOUSA. Not that I know of at all. I have never known that it was unlawful to get together and sing.

Mr. CURRIER. It probably has not been enforced to that extent.

Mr. MCGAVIN. You think it ought to be against the law for some people to attempt to do it, do you not, Mr. Sousa? [Laughter.]

Mr. SOUSA. Yes.

Mr. CURRIER. It is possible that that has deterred the young people from singing.

Mr. SOUSA. Would you not consider it a greater crime to turn on a phonograph----

Mr. CURRIER. I do not consider singing a crime.

Mr. SOUSA. If you would make it a misdemeanor, do you not think it much worse to have a lot of these machines going than to have a lot of fresh young voices singing?

Mr. CURRIER. I think a great many people in this country get a great deal of comfort out of the phonograph.

Mr. SOUSA. But they get much more out of the human voice, and I will tell you why: The phonograph companies know that. They pay Caruso $3,000 to make a record in their machine, because they get the human voice. And they pay a cornet player $4 to blow one of his blasts into it. [Laughter.] That is the difference. The people, the homes, want the human voice. First comes the country singing school, and next comes the country bra.s.s band. Let us do something to help them. You can do it by making these people pay me for everything that I compose. [Laughter.]

STATEMENT OF VICTOR HERBERT, ESQ.

Mr. HERBERT. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, it is hardly necessary for me to add anything, I think, to Mr. Sousa's statement. I think he has made the question very plain and clear.

I would like to say this, that both Mr. Sousa and I are not here representing ourselves as individuals and our personal interests, but we stand here for many hundreds of poor fellows who have not been able to come here--possibly because they have not got the price--brother composers whose names figure on the advertis.e.m.e.nts of these companies who make perforated rolls and talking machines, etc., and who never have received a cent, just as is the case with Mr. Sousa and myself.

I do not see how they can deny that they sell their roll or their machine, because they are reproducing a part of our brain, of our genius, or whatever it might be. They pay, as Mr. Sousa said, the singer who sings a song into their machines. They pay Mr. Caruso $3,000 for each song--for each record. He might be singing Mr. Sousa's song, or my song, and the composer would not receive a cent. I say that that can not be just. It is as plain a question, Mr. Chairman, as it could be, to my mind. Morally, there is only one side to it, and I hope you will see it and recommend the necessary law.

Mr. CURRIER. Just an incident: The talking machine company that pays a singer gets no protection on that record under the law, either, does it?

Mr. HERBERT. I think they do.

Mr. CURRIER. Could not a competing talking machine company immediately reproduce those records?

Mr. HERBERT. Well, they would go for them.

Mr. CURRIER. I have an impression that there is no law under which they could.

Mr. HERBERT. I think they would.

Mr. CURRIER. I think there is no protection at all.

Mr. HERBERT. I know that we are not protected. Since the courts have held that the perforated roll is not an imitation of the sheet music we have absolutely no ground to stand on.

STATEMENT OF MR. HORACE PETt.i.t.

Mr. PETt.i.t. I represent the Victor Talking Machine Company. While I am not here as one of the advocates or proponents of the bill, it is very fitting, I think, at this time, immediately after Mr. Sousa's and Mr.

Victor Herbert's appearance, that I should state what we have to say in regard to the talking machines. It may be that Mr. Herbert and Mr.

Sousa have been somewhat abused by the talking-machine companies. They, however, certainly do not show it in their appearance.

Our position is to be equitable and just in the matter. We believe that there should be protection, and we are willing that this bill, with certain amendments we have to suggest, should be pa.s.sed, substantially on the lines indicated, so that the composer should have the protection against his music or his compositions being copied on a record of a talking machine; with the understanding, however, that it does not apply to subsisting copyrights. I believe that is the understanding as expressed, although there is some ambiguity in the language, and therefore I would suggest that section 3, in that regard, be modified, either by striking out the section or by adding to it. Section 3 reads (reading):

SEC. 3. That the copyright provided by this act shall extend to and protect all the copyrightable component parts of the work copyrighted, any and all reproductions or copies thereof, in whatever form, style, or size, and all matter reproduced therein in which copyright is already subsisting, but without extending the duration of such copyright.

I therefore would add to that, in view of that somewhat ambiguous language:

_And provided_, That no devices, contrivances, or appliances, or dies, or matrices for making the same, made prior to the date this act shall go into effect shall be subject to any subsisting copyright.

This, I believe, is the intention of the framers of the bill, although it is somewhat doubtfully expressed. So much in that regard.

Further, gentlemen, if the talking machine companies are to pay the author and composer, as they will under this act if pa.s.sed, a royalty on the copyrighted compositions, the talking machine companies should also be protected. We might pay Mr. Herbert or Mr. Sousa or Mr. Caruso, or any of the opera singers, a thousand dollars for making a record. It is perfectly possible, within the known arts, for that record, after we have made it, to be reproduced by a mere copperplating process by somebody else and copied, so that we would pay the thousand dollars or so and have no protection against the party manufacturing a duplicate of it. Therefore, not only for that reason, but for the other reasons which I shall briefly mention, the talking machine manufacturers should be ent.i.tled to register the particular records which they prepare, and that, therefore, should be included in the act.

The bill evidently is intended to cover talking-machine records, although it is somewhat doubtfully expressed.

Section 4 is the section upon which everything more or less hangs, and that is [reading]:

That the works for which copyright may be secured under this act shall include all the works of an author.

That is all that it says in that regard. The purport, however, is to cover substantially everything that was covered by the former copyright act. In section 18 the different things copyrighted are specified, in which section the duration of the terms are provided. Section 18 states, for instance:

For twenty-eight years after the date of first publication in the case of any print or label relating to articles of manufacture.

Then comes a proviso, and then:

(b) For fifty years after the date of first publication in the case of any composite or collective work; any work copyrighted by a corporate body or by the employer of the author or authors; any abridgment, compilation, dramatization, or translation; any posthumous work; any arrangement or reproduction in some new form of a musical composition; any photograph; any reproduction of a work of art.