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.
5. International copyright.
The idea of nationality or citizenship governed our copyright legislation for more than a century, from the earliest American copyright statute of 1783 to July 1, 1891, so that until the latter date copyright protection in the United States was limited to the works of authors who were citizens or residents. By the Act of March 3, 1891, commonly called the international-copyright law, which went into effect on July 1 of that year, the privileges of copyright in this country were extended to the productions of authors who were citizens or subjects of other countries which by their laws permitted American citizens to obtain copyright upon substantially the same basis as their own subjects. The existence of these conditions is made known by presidential proclamation, and up to this time ten such proclamations have been issued extending copyright in the United States to the citizen authors of Belgium, Chile, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain and her possessions (including India, Canada, the Australias, etc.), Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. The privilege of copyright in the United States is extended only to authors who are subjects of some country in whose behalf a presidential proclamation as to copyright has been issued.
It is well to point out, perhaps, that these copyright proclamations are not equivalent to copyright treaties, but are only notices that certain conditions exist. Only in the case of one country, viz., Germany, has anything been entered into approaching a convention or treaty. Under date of Jan. 15, 1892, an "agreement" was signed with that country to issue a proclamation extending copyright in the United States to German subjects upon an assurance that "Citizens of the United States of America shall enjoy, in the German Empire, the protection of copyright as regards works of literature and art, as well as photographs, against illegal reproduction, on the same basis on which such protection is granted to subjects of the empire."
In order to obtain copyright abroad, therefore, an American citizen must ascertain the requirements of the law of each country in which he desires to protect his book or other production and comply explicitly with such requirements. He can, of course, only avail himself of the legal protection accorded, so far as it is within his power to thus comply, and therein lies the difference between the privileges secured under the present international-copyright arrangements, and such as would be obtainable under copyright conventions or treaties. A citizen of the United States may find himself unable to meet the obligations or conditions of the statutes, just as a foreign author may find it practically impossible to comply with the requirements of the United States law, and in either case there would be a failure to secure the protection desired. In the case of a photograph, for example, the English law requires that the "author" of the photograph must be a British subject or actually "resident within the Dominions of the Crown," and the United States law requires that the two copies of the photograph to be deposited in the Copyright Office "shall be printed from negatives made within the limits of the United States," two sets of conditions difficult of fulfilment. By means of a copyright convention exemption could be obtained in either case from these onerous conditions.
6. Conditions and formalities required by the copyright law.
Two steps are made prerequisites to valid copyright by the laws now in force in the United States. The first of these is the recording of the title in the Copyright Office. For this purpose the statute requires the deposit of "a printed copy" of the title-page, "on or before the day of publication in this or any foreign country." For a number of years it has been the practice of the Copyright Office to accept a typewritten title in lieu of the printed title-page, but in this, as with all other requirements of the law regarding copyright, the preferable course is a strict compliance with the letter as well as the spirit of the law.
The clerical service for thus recording the title requires the payment of a fee, which should accompany the title-page when transmitted to the Copyright Office. The fee for this, as fixed by law, is 50 cents in the case of the title of a book whose author is a citizen of the United States, and $1 in the case of a book whose author is not an American but is a citizen or subject of some country to whose citizens the privilege of copyright in the United States has been extended, under the provisions of the Act of March 3, 1891. If a copy of the record thus made of the title (commonly called a certificate) is desired, an additional fee of 50 cents is required in all cases.
In order to have this essential record of title properly made, in the form exactly prescribed by the statute, it is necessary to furnish the Copyright Office with certain information, namely:
a. The name of the claimant of the copyright. (This should be the real name of the person, not a nom de plume or pseudonym.) b. Whether copyright is claimed by applicant as the "author" or the "proprietor" of the book. c. The nationality or citizenship of the author of the book. (This is required to determine whether the book is by an author who is privileged to copyright protection in this country, and, also, the amount of the fee to be charged for recording the title.) d. The application should state that the title-page is the title of a "book." e. A statement should be made that the book is or will be "printed from type set within the limits of the United States."