Arguments before the Committee on Patents of the House of Representatives, conjointly with the Senate Committee on Patents, on H.R. 19853, to amend and consolidate the acts respecting copyright: June 6, 7, 8, and 9, 1906.United States. Congress. House. Committee on Patents
History
Arguments before the Committee on Patents of the House of Representatives, conjointly with the Senate Committee on Patents, on H.R. 19853, to amend and consolidate the acts respecting copyright: June 6, 7, 8, and 9, 1906.
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Patents
Copyright -- United States
What will be the result if these features of the bill are put through?
Mr. Herbert and Mr. Sousa will get some benefits from it. Ninety-nine
per cent of the composers will get absolutely nothing from it. The
Æolian Company and the concerns affiliated with it will have millions
of dollars turned into their coffers. And the net result is that the
public will pay and the independent manufacturers whom we represent
will either go out of business, or will have to transact business in
such a way that it will be without any profit to themselves, or
entirely on sufferance. That is the broad, general question that is
before you, gentlemen, of these committees. We only want a square
deal. We want no rights that anybody else does not get.
But we do not want to have others put in a position where they can
take away our right to do business on a reasonable basis. That being
the broad general proposition, I shall expect during the summer
vacation to supply your committees with as much information as I
possibly can on these various matters, and I ask the committees to do
what they can toward investigating how far I am right in this matter.
I can say that those charges have been made in the White-Smith suits
in the circuit court and circuit court of appeals, and they have not
been answered in anyway by the representatives of the monopoly to
which I refer, nor have they been denied.
On the bill itself----
Mr. CHANEY. What section?
Mr. O'CONNELL. I will take it from the beginning, if you please.
The CHAIRMAN. Before you proceed with the bill: Have the companies
that you represent made any effort to secure contracts with Mr. Sousa
and Mr. Herbert and the other composers that have been mentioned?
M. O'CONNELL. The companies that I represent do not make contracts
with composers. The companies that I represent primarily, the 10
manufacturers, do not cut perforated music. They buy it. They buy it
either from the Æolian Company, or from one of the many independent
manufacturers of such rolls. So that we are not brought into direct
contact with Mr. Sousa, Mr. Herbert, or any composers. We want to be
in a position where the independents will not be forced out of the
field, or where we can be forced to buy this perforated music at an
exorbitant figure, or where they can be in the position of refusing to
give it to us at any price.
The CHAIRMAN. These companies, as I understand, under existing law
simply go to the store offering the music for sale, which is music,
and then put it upon the rolls. Is that right?
Mr. O'CONNELL. I do not know what the particular arrangements are that
the composers have with the publishers, or the publishers with the
music companies.
The CHAIRMAN. Under existing law, is it necessary for the manufacturer
to do more than I have stated?
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