Every copyright proprietor may be defendant in a suit as well as complainant. Suits may be brought in good faith or for malicious reasons; for the real protection of property or for harassing business rivals. They may be well founded or groundless, honest or frivolous. Now, speaking as the proprietor of a large number of copyrights and a great deal of valuable copyright property which I am anxious to protect against infringement, I would much prefer to forego the advantages offered to complainants under this section rather than run the risk of the infinite vexation which might be caused my company as defendant in malicious and frivolous suits brought in foreign jurisdictions chiefly for purposes of blackmail. I see no good reason why copyright proprietors should have facilities for the use of the Federal courts not accorded to any other class of suitors. It is true that certain classes of copyright property may require special provisions for their protection, but it should be noted that section 966 of the Revised Statutes is by this bill retained (see sec. 64), and would therefore still protect dramatists and musical people in the peculiar rights which they now have under the present law. The penal provisions of this bill are severe and even harsh, including misdemeanor clauses with fines and forfeitures and even imprisonment. On the other hand, the law is full of novel provisions. It will be, at best, years before these can be judicially construed so that they may be generally understood. Meanwhile, everyone concerned will find many doubtful points and open questions on which legal advice will vary, and can in no case be conclusive. To subject authors and publishers to the danger of being peremptorily summoned to defend an action in a distant district for some supposed violation of some provision, "any provision of this act," however insignificant, with the issuance of ex parte injunctions operative throughout the whole country, with possible "impounding" of important and valuable publications for an indefinite period of time (during the pendency of the suit, see sec. 23, p. 18), a publisher in New York might sue his neighbor across the street in any distant district, possibly Alaska or the Philippine Islands; a rich and powerful house might crush a feeble competitor by forcing him to defend suits brought simultaneously in a hundred jurisdictions. These possibilities may well terrorize all persons interested in copyrightable property of any description.