What is the nature of the protection secured? Copy-right, i. e., the right of copy—the right to make copies. According to the words of our own statute, the author of a book "shall have the sole liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, completing, copying, executing, finishing and vending the same." The exclusive liberty of reproducing his work, and the restriction of the liberty of every one except the author to multiply copies constitute the literary property. It is a much-discussed question whether the author's privilege of copyright is a natural right or was created by legislation. Granting the production a proper one, it would seem that the author of a literary creation has a natural right to the unrestricted use and enjoyment of it. As Professor Langdell recently put it: "he has the right of use and enjoyment, because he can exercise such right without committing any wrong against any other person, and because no other person can prevent his exercising such right without committing a wrong against him." The author's creation is his own, and he has a natural right to the use of it without interference. The state does not create this right, but recognizes it and protects it. Protection is secured by restricting the liberty of other people in the use of the author's creation. Just how far this restriction should go is still a moot question. The law says, however, that you may not reproduce in whole or in part an author's book without his written consent, signed in the presence of two witnesses. It does not say that you may not read the book, nor are you forbidden to read it in public, even for profit, although in the case of musical and dramatic compositions public performance or representation for profit without the author's special—not implied—consent is not only directly prohibited, but is punishable by imprisonment. The International Publishers' Congress, which met in Paris in June, 1896, passed a resolution to the effect that the reproduction of a literary work by means of public readings, in case such readings were held for purposes of profit, ought not to be permitted without the consent of the copyright proprietor. By the Act of March 3, 1891, the exclusive right to translate or dramatize his book is reserved to the author. In this unrestricted and unlimited exclusive right of translation and dramatization our law has exceeded the usual trend of legislation in regard to the author's control over his work in these directions. Foreign legislation usually only reserves to the author the exclusive right to translate or dramatize for a limited fixed period of time, and if he has not himself produced a translation or dramatization within that period, another person may.
It has occasionally been intimated that the efforts made by the public libraries to secure the constant circulation of the same book is a trespass upon the rights of the author, as he is presumably thus subjected to the loss of readers who would otherwise also become purchasers of his book. A case has just been decided to test an author's right to object to having copies of his own copyright editions of his books sold in a manner not indicated by himself as volumes of a so-called collected edition of his works. The decision, on first hearing, was adverse to the author's contention.
It is the literary expression of the author's thoughts and ideas which is the subject-matter of the protection, and not primarily the thoughts and ideas themselves. These last may or may not be original with the author, but once he has made public a thought or an idea he has given it away; he cannot control its use or application. The author of a translation of a book—the original work being in the public domain—may obtain a copyright upon his own translation, but doing so will not debar another from producing an original translation of his own of the same work and obtaining copyright registration for the same.
Copyright does not give to any one monopoly in the use of the title of a book, nor can a title per se be subject-matter of copyright. It is the book itself, the literary substance which is protected, the title being recorded for the identification of the work.
3. Time and territorial limitations of copyright.
A few countries still grant copyright in perpetuity, but usually the term of protection is limited either to a certain number of years, or to a term of years beyond the date of the author's death. This last provision is the more general, and the term varies from seven years after the author's death in England, for instance, to eighty years after the author's death in Spain. The two most common terms are thirty years to fifty years beyond the life of the author. Our own legislation provides for two possible terms of protection. The first being for twenty-eight years from the date of the recording of the title in the Copyright Office, and the second, an extension of fourteen years from the expiration of the first term.
Besides the time limit, copyright—especially as far as the authors of the United States are concerned—is limited territorially, not extending beyond the boundaries of the United States. Whether the protection which follows registration and deposit shall extend so as to include Porto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines is a matter of some question. Probably as regards the Philippines the answer would be in the negative, but as concerns Porto Rico, since the passage of the "Act temporarily to provide revenue and a civil government for Porto Rico" (April 12, 1900) and Hawaii, since the taking effect (June 14, 1900) of the "Act to provide a government for the territory of Hawaii," the response would be in the affirmative.
The obtaining of copyright protection by a compliance with the United States statutory requirements as to registration of title, deposit of copies, and printing of notice of copyright, does not secure extension of this protection in the territory of any foreign country, the United States not being a member of the International Copyright Union. An American author must comply with the requirements of the copyright laws of a foreign country, just as if he were a citizen or subject of that country, in order to obtain copyright protection within its borders. Presumably, however, the obtaining of valid copyright protection in one of the countries of the International Copyright Union, England for example, would secure protection throughout the various countries of that Union.
4. Who may obtain copyright.
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.