It is respectfully submitted that this transcends the intention of the constitutional limitation, and that the public would, by such an enactment, be deprived of substantially all the compensation which the Constitution intended should be reserved to it in return for the copyright protection granted the author. Whether the constitutional limitation should or should not be so strictly applied, it seems beyond doubt that sound public policy forbids thus bartering away all the public benefit arising from the free right of publication after the expiration of copyright. There is a second objection to the particular form in which the bill gives this extended copyright term. There does not appear to be any logical relation between the copyright protection and the duration of the life of the author. The privilege or protection granted is in no respect personal, except as to the revenue which may be derived. There does not appear any reason why the work of a mature writer of 60, presumably capable of giving to the public compositions of peculiar value, especially if they relate to scientific or philosophical subjects, should receive less protection from his copyright than would be granted to a youth of 20, whose immature productions would obtain the protection of a presumably long life before him (during which he would often regret his immature publication). Furthermore, the particular form or provision of the bill with respect to joint authors (line 24, p. 14; line 26, p. 15), when corrected to cure the obvious error in the phraseology and express the doubtless intended meaning, opens the way most obviously for practical fraud upon the public. An aged author, by associating with himself in a nominal yet unimpeachably colorable way a youthful assistant, and obtaining copyright in their names as joint authors, will secure protection for his work concurrent with the life of the junior and fifty years thereafter, instead of concurrently with his own nearly ended life and subsequent fifty years. It is obvious that joint authorship will become exceedingly popular if this paragraph of the bill is retained; and by the expedient of triple or quadruple authorship the chances of a long period will be greatly increased.