It is the _author_ of the work who is privileged to obtain copyright
protection for it. As I have already pointed out, the constitutional
provision enacts that Congress is to legislate to secure to _authors_
the exclusive right to their _writings_. When, therefore, the law states
that the author "or proprietor" of any book may obtain a copyright for
it, the term "proprietor" must be construed to mean the author's
assignee, _i.e._, the person to whom he has legally transferred his
copyright privilege. It is not necessarily transferred by the sale of
the book, _i.e._, the manuscript of the author's work, as the purchase
alone of an author's manuscript does not secure to the proprietor of the
manuscript copyright privileges. Prior to July 1, 1891, no foreign
author could obtain copyright protection in the United States, hence the
purchase by a publisher of one of Dickens's novels in manuscript, for
example, would not enable the buyer to obtain copyright on the book in
this country. No author who has not the privilege of copyright in the
United States can transfer to another either a copyright or the right to
obtain one. He cannot sell what he does not himself possess. Under the
United States law copyright comes through _authorship_ only. It is not a
right attaching to the thing--the book--but is a right vested in the
creator of the literary production, hence does not pass to a second
person by the transference of the material thing, the book, and evidence
must be offered showing that the transference of the book carried with
it the author's consent to a conveyance of the privilege of copyright.
This same principle is embodied in the provisions of the law as to
renewal of the copyright. The second term of protection must also start
with the author, or if he be dead, with his natural heirs, his widow or
children, but not with his assigns, the "proprietors." The right to the
extension term is in the author if he be living at the period during
which registration for the second term may take place, _viz._, within
six months prior to the expiration of the first term of twenty-eight
years. If the author be dead, the privilege of renewal rests with his
widow or children. Whether the author may dispose of his right of
renewal so that the transference may be effective for the second term,
even though the author should have died before the date of the beginning
of that term, is a question upon which the authorities differ. The
language of the statute would seem to give to the author an inchoate
right which reverts to his widow or children should he be married and
die before the expiration of the first term of the copyright.