By Frederick H. Hitchcock.
Copyrighting a book is in most instances not a difficult matter, but
the present United States laws are so complicated and inconsistent
that an inexperienced author may readily fall into errors of one kind
or another.
In a modern publishing house, the routine work of complying with the
provisions of the copyright laws is usually in the hands of one clerk,
who is responsible for the preparation and filing of the necessary
documents at the proper time and for keeping a complete record of all
that he does. Experience soon brings such a clerk a really valuable
knowledge of the law, but as many questions of vital importance arise
from time to time, it is customary for one of the most responsible men
in the concern, generally a member of the firm or an officer in the
corporation, to exercise a general supervision of all copyright
matters.
When a book is ready to be sent to the bindery, the manufacturing
department will generally order a certain number of copies to be
finished in advance of the rest of the edition. Some of these will be
for the travelling salesman's use, some for the publicity department,
and at least two for copyright purposes. With the copies delivered to
the copyright clerk, the manufacturing department will send one or two
separate title-pages, either torn from the printed sheets or taken
from the early proofs made by the printer. With these in hand and with
information from the selling department as to the day when the book is
to be published, the clerk in charge will then take the first step
toward copyrighting it. This is the filing of the claim for copyright
and of the title of the book.
The Copyright Office in the Library of Congress at Washington supplies
free upon request application blanks, and one of these must be
carefully filled in. The information called for by this blank is as
follows: the amount of the fees enclosed, whether a sealed copy of the
record, or certificate as it is called, is desired, whether the volume
is to be classed as a book, periodical, or dramatic composition, an
abbreviated title of the book, the name of the author, or proprietor,
the name and address of the applicant, the name of the country where
the book was printed, whether the applicant is the author, or (having
an assignment from the author) the proprietor, the name of the country
of which the author is a citizen, or subject, and whether the whole or
a part of the book is sought to be copyrighted.
There is a blank page in the form where the print or proof of the
title-page must be pasted. If neither of these is available at the
time, it is customary to use a typewritten title-page, but as the law
distinctly calls for a "printed" title and as the courts have not
decided whether typewriting is printing within the intention of the
law, it is best to follow the exact letter of the law.
The fee for filing the application or claim for copyright is fifty
cents if the author is a citizen or resident of the United States, or
one dollar if he is a foreigner. If a copy of the record entered at
the Copyright Office is desired, an additional fifty cents is
required. The fees, preferably in the form of a money-order, are
enclosed in the envelope containing the claim, and the whole
forwarded, postage prepaid, to the Register of Copyrights at the
Library of Congress.
Upon receiving these, the Copyright Office will acknowledge the
receipt of the fees and make a record of the claim and of the title in
books provided for the purpose. The law specifies that this record
shall be in the following words:--
"Library of Congress, to wit: Be it remembered that on the___day
of________190________________ of_________has deposited in this Office
the title of a BOOK, the title of which is in the following words, to
wit:____________, the right whereof_______ claims as author and
proprietor in conformity with the laws of the United States respecting
copyrights. ______________Librarian of Congress."
It is generally the custom to obtain a copy of this record, which, if
the fee is enclosed, is sent to the claimant as soon after the receipt
of the application as it can be made out in the regular course of the
business of the Copyright Office. This copy is signed by the Register
of Copyrights and is sealed with the official seal of the Library of
Congress. The period of protection under an original claim is
twenty-eight years.
It is important to remember that the application and the title are
required by law to be delivered to the Register of Copyrights "on or
before the day of publication in this or any other country." If
delayed until after that day, the book cannot have the protection of
the copyright law.
Prior to 1891 none but citizens or residents of the United States
could obtain copyright, but in July of that year the privilege was
extended to the citizens, or subjects, of such other countries as
grant to the citizens of the United States the same copyright
privileges which they afford to their own countrymen. At the present
time these privileged countries are Belgium, France, Great Britain and
her possessions, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Portugal,
Spain, Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, the Netherlands (Holland) and her
possessions, Cuba, China, and Norway.
The law also requires that a book desired to be copyrighted in the
United States must be printed in this country. It is, therefore, not
possible to copyright a book which has been put into type and
electrotyped in England and sent here for the presswork and binding.
Copies of a book manufactured in this country may, however, be sent to
England and copyrighted there.
The second step is to send two copies of the printed book for deposit
in the Copyright Office, and until this has been done, the copyright
is incomplete. These copies, like the title, must be delivered on or
before the day of publication.
A printed receipt-form for books to be deposited is supplied by the
Copyright Office, and it is the usual practice for the sender to fill
in his address, and the names of the book and of the author, so that
when the books are received, the Register of Copyrights needs only to
date and sign the receipt-form and return it to the sender. This
receipt-form should be enclosed with the books when they are
forwarded. The package must be plainly addressed (the Copyright Office
furnishes printed labels if desired) and sent, carriage prepaid,
through the mail.
It not infrequently happens that publication must be made before the
two copies of a book can reach Washington. In such cases the copyright
clerk may take the books to the nearest post-office and obtain from
the postmaster a dated receipt for them which is equivalent to
delivery to the Copyright Office. The package is not finally wrapped
until the postmaster has examined it.
When these steps have been properly taken, and the certificate, or
sealed copy, of the record and the receipt for the two copies have
been received, the copyright is secure so far as our laws can render
it. It should be borne in mind that the Copyright Office does not
grant a copyright in a manner similar to the granting of a patent
right by the patent office. Its function is simply to record in a
permanent place and in official form the claim made by the author, or
by the proprietor, of that right. When a book is "pirated" and the
offender sued, it must first be established by the records that the
provisions of the law have been complied with fully and correctly. In
this way a copyright is always subject to review by the courts.
Every copy of a book for which copyright has been claimed must have a
formal notice to that effect, printed on its "title-page or on the
page following." As prescribed by law, this notice must read either
"Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year 1906 by A. B. in
the Office of the Library of Congress," or simply, "Copyright, 1906,
by A. B." The omission of such a notice from the book would make it
impossible for its owner to prevent its being reprinted. There is a
penalty of $100 for using the notice of copyright in an uncopyrighted
book, and when the notice is used, there is a penalty of $25, if the
two copies as required by law are not deposited. This latter penalty
also applies in the case of failure to deposit one copy of a new
edition differing from the former one, if a notice of copyright is
used in the new edition.
In order to obtain a renewal of a copyright, the claim and the title
must be filed on a form provided for the purpose with the Register of
Copyrights "within six months before the expiration of the first
term," which would be sometime between twenty-seven and one-half and
twenty-eight years from the date of filing the original title. The
copyright period runs from the date of filing the original claim, and
not from the time of depositing the books, and great care should be
taken to ascertain the date of the registration of the original title,
and to compute the time so that the filing of the application for
renewal will surely fall within the specified six months. The renewal
period is fourteen years, and the fees are the same as in the case of
the original application, but a certificate, or copy of the record, of
the renewal claim must be taken and paid for by the claimant.
Only one copy of a book is required to be deposited to complete the
claim for a renewal term of copyright. This copy also must be
delivered within "six months before the expiration of the first term,"
and should be accompanied by a receipt as in the case of the original
deposit. In order to complete the claim, a copy of the certificate
must be published verbatim, within two months of the date of renewal
for four weeks in one or more newspapers printed in the United States.
In obtaining international copyright, publication on the same day here
and abroad is necessary, and this is sometimes a cause of considerable
inconvenience in actual practice. When a New York publisher wishes to
copyright in England a novel which he is about to publish, he must
prepare six special copies of the finished book, bind them in cloth,
print the copyright notice on the back of the title-page, and the name
and address of the London firm or the individual who is willing to act
as the English publisher of the book, and forward the copies to that
person. At the same time he will write to this agent, telling him of
the shipment and requesting him to enter the book for copyright and
publish it in England on or about such a date. He will, of course,
allow sufficient time for the books to reach London, and he will
carefully point out in his letter any American holidays which occur
near the probable date of publication. Upon receiving the books, the
London agent will cable the New York publisher the date on which he
will publish the book, taking care to allow an interval of a day or
two, because of a possible delay.
On the day agreed upon, the New York publisher proceeds to copyright
and publish his book in this country in the usual manner, while the
London agent does the same abroad, delivering to the British Museum
one copy of the book, and to Stationer's Hall, for use in certain
libraries, four copies. Both of them will on that day sell at least
one or two copies which will constitute a legal publication.
It is the custom with many publishers to establish the publication day
of all of their books, by displaying a few copies, or by actually
selling one or more copies to some one. In the case of a very popular
copyrighted book which it is desirable to have the retailers all over
the country begin to sell on the same day, it is deemed safer to make
this technical publication before any of the books are distributed
through the trade. A record of the first sales entered in a
publisher's sales-book in the course of business would effectually
prevent any one from claiming in after years a right to reprint a book
on the ground that the claim, title, and copies were not originally
filed until after the book had been put upon the market.
Under a recent amendment in our law, an author of a book in a foreign
language, who is a citizen of one of the foreign countries which
allows to our citizens the same copyright privileges as are allowed to
its own countrymen, is permitted to file in the Copyright Office
within thirty days after its publication in a foreign country a copy
of his book with a formal declaration that he is the author and that
he intends to translate it or to print it in its original language and
to apply for copyright in the United States. After doing this, he is
allowed one year in which to complete his proposed translation or to
print it in the original language and copyright it here.
Before this statute was passed, two or more persons could translate a
foreign book, and each could copyright his own translation. Every copy
of a book for which such protection is desired under this law must
bear a notice stating, "Published ---- Nineteen Hundred and ----.
Privilege of copyright in the United States reserved under the Act
approved March 3, 1905, by A. B."
Only the author or his assignee (_i.e._ the proprietor) may secure
copyright in a book. An author may transfer orally all or part of his
rights before publication, but after publication it is necessary for
him to make the assignment by some form of written instrument. In
order to make it a valid assignment, the original instrument must be
sent to be recorded in the office of the Librarian of Congress within
sixty days after its execution. The fee for recording an assignment is
one dollar. After the original document has been recorded, it is
signed and sealed and returned to the sender, who should preserve it
with the certificate.
It is a common practice to have in the contract between the author and
his publisher a clause assigning to the publisher all of the author's
rights for the "full term of copyright and for any and all renewals."
The agreement, of course, includes other provisions such as for the
payment of the usual royalties, accounting, etc. Having been made
before publication such an assignment does not need to be recorded in
the Copyright Office.
The history of copyright is an extremely interesting subject, but it
cannot be properly treated in the limits of this article. It may be
mentioned, however, that the first copyright law was enacted by
Parliament during Queen Anne's reign and is known as "8 Anne, c. 9."
This statute provided that an author should have complete control of
his literary productions during a first term of fourteen years after
publication, and a renewal term of the same length, and provided
penalties against piracy. A great many questions concerning this law
arose from time to time in trials before various courts, but perhaps
the chief one of interest was that of whether the limitation of the
period during which it granted protection had destroyed the author's
rights which had existed previously. For fifty years after the passage
of the law, the decisions were that the right of ownership existed for
all time as a right in common law unaffected by the statute, but in
1774 the highest English court held that while the rights of the
author before the publication of his book remained unaffected, after
publication he had no rights except during the period specified by the
statute. This decision is still believed by many authorities to have
been a wrong one, but it has been the basis for all subsequent
copyright law in this country as well as in England. Therefore in the
United States to-day, the right of ownership lies in the author until
his work is published, but upon publication he has no rights except
those given him by law, and these he can obtain only by a strict
compliance with the requirements of the law. Any one who is
sufficiently interested to read the first hundred pages of Drone's
"Treatise on the Law of Property in Intellectual Productions" will be
well repaid for the effort, and will obtain considerable light upon
how the "right of copying," or printing, a book developed, why its
duration is not unlimited, and why we must observe certain formalities
in order to protect our literary work by it.