Mr. DAVIS. I have been trying to get counsel here. He would probably have advised me in my opening speech for the opposition to imitate Mr. Sousa in making a bid for your sympathy and avoid a discussion of fine legal points, but I will give you my practical ideas of that. I am an inventor who has studied the law, but without being a lawyer I am ready to say that as the law now stands---- Mr. CAMPBELL. I am speaking of the future. This bill affects the future. Mr. DAVIS. Well, "this bill affects the future," but has it the right to affect the future? Has it the right to change a situation which has existed since 1789? The bill proposes a change, not merely amend the Constitution, therefore I challenge the authority of Congress to enact it. At present the composer has no contractual right as regards a machine, and Congress can not give it to him. Mr. CAMPBELL. That is the very proposition we are trying to get at. The CHAIRMAN. We can not very well change the Constitution. Mr. CHANEY. It is not a question of changing the Constitution; it is a question of giving the Constitution its fullest scope. Mr. DAVIS. Well, a gentleman speaking here yesterday, Mr. Stephen H. Olin, counsel for the American Publishers' Copyright League, although favoring this bill as a whole, gave you a warning that if this bill attempted to broaden the word "writing" so as to include a machine, then the bill in this respect might be held by the Supreme Court to be unconstitutional, and I have already traced the introduction of the terms "machine" or "device" in the bill direct to the monopolistic octopus. Mr. Olin made that statement here yesterday voluntarily. Mr. CHANEY. I know that. Mr. DAVIS. Proceeding further, Mr. Olin said he was not interested in the introduction of any clause restricting the mechanical reproduction of music; that he was satisfied to leave that to the courts, and let the courts give the construction of that word "writing" in the Constitution. They have been at work at it for many years, with the result that a machine remains a machine and not a "writing." Mr. WEBB. Mr. Davis, your idea is that if the composer or publisher copyrights a piece of music and sells it and in the sale gets whatever price his copyright or royalty gives him, and you buy it, or anybody else buys it, that that purchaser has a right to play it or sing it in public or private, or anywhere else he pleases? Mr. DAVIS. No, sir; I do not say that, exactly, sir---- Mr. WEBB. What is your position, then, if that is not your position?