One frequently hears the expressions "has obtained a copyright," "issued
a copyright," etc., giving the impression that copyrights can be granted
somewhat after the manner in which the Patent Office issues
letters-patent. But Congress has established no office authorized to
furnish any such guarantee of _literary_ property as is done in the case
of patent monopoly. The Copyright Office is purely an office of record
and simply registers _claims_ to copyright. The form of record
prescribed by law being the effect that A. B. "hath deposited the title
of a book the right whereof he _claims_ as author or proprietor in
conformity with the laws of the United States respecting copyrights."
The Copyright Office has no authority to question any claim as to
authorship or proprietorship, nor can it determine between conflicting
claims. It registers the claim presented in the prescribed form for a
proper subject of copyright by any person legally entitled to such
registration without investigation as to the truthfulness of the
representations, and would be obliged to record, not only the same title
for different books, but the same title for the same work on behalf of
two or more different persons, even against the protest of either one,
were such registrations asked for. No examination is therefore made when
a title reaches the office as to whether the same or a similar title has
been used before. As I have already stated, the title _per se_ is not
subject to copyright, and no one can secure a monopoly of the use of a
title by merely having it recorded at a nominal fee at the Copyright
Office.
If any one, wishing to use a given form of title but desiring to avoid
possible duplication of one previously used, writes to the Copyright
Office asking whether such a title has already been recorded, an answer
is made stating what is disclosed by the indexes of the office. It must
be frankly explained, however, that an absolutely conclusive statement
as to whether a given title has been previously used cannot always be
given. The copyright records of entries of title previous to July 10,
1870, are but indifferently indexed and rarely by title, usually only
under names of proprietors of the copyright. The copyright entries since
July 10, 1870, to May 31, 1901, number 1,217,075. The index to these
entries consists of more than 600,000 cards, many of which contain a
number of entries. These cards index the entries primarily under the
names of the proprietors of the copyright, and this proprietor's index
is understood to have been kept up continuously and to be complete, so
that under the name of each copyright proprietor there is a card or
cards showing the titles of all articles upon which copyright is
claimed. In addition to the proprietor's index there are cards under the
titles of periodicals and under the leading catchwords of the titles of
other articles, besides cards under the authors' names for books.
Unhappily there are periods of time when what may be called the
subsidiary index cards were not kept up.
In addition to cards under the proprietors' names, cards are now made:
for _books_, under the names of their authors; for _anonymous books_,
_periodicals_ and _dramatic compositions_, under the first words of the
titles (not a, an, or the), and for _maps_, under the leading subject
words of the titles, _i.e._, the names of the localities mapped. It is
doubtful if an absolutely complete index of all copyright entries by the
_title_ of the book and other article--in addition to the cards at
present made--could be justified by even a possibly legitimate use of
such an index. When it is remembered that the copyright entries last
year numbered 97,967, the magnitude of the task of making several cards
for each entry is easily conceived, and it is a question whether it
could be rightfully imposed upon the Copyright Office under the present
provisions of the law and so long as the registration of a title does
not secure the use of that title to some one person to the exclusion of
all others.