How many authors have succumbed to the embarrassment of just this situation, deliberately created by greedy publishers, will never be known, but it is time that the statute which offers such inducement to greedy human nature to perpetrate frauds of this character should be remedied, and that the prima facie right acquired under copyright statutes should have behind it at least the support of the oath as to authorship and of an instrument of assignment by the author to the party claiming as proprietor. _6. Penal provisions._--It is respectfully submitted that the penal provisions of this statute are grossly disproportionate to the offenses or injuries to which they are directed, and obviously provocative of blackmail and coercion, and in some instances clearly unconstitutional and unenforceable. No attempt will be made here to discuss all of these provisions, but attention will be directed only to those which bear upon the particular matter on behalf of which this presentation is made, namely, automatic reproducing devices; and without discussion it is suggested as too obvious for argument that a penalty of $10 for each and every infringing copy of a perforated roll found in the possession of the alleged infringer, his agents or employees, is grossly excessive, in view of the selling price of such rolls, which seldom exceeds $3, and probably averages not far from $1. Severe penalties are only proper where the offense complained of can not be committed by accident or inadvertence, and where there can be no possible mistake as to a given act constituting the offense. In any case in which there might be room for difference of opinion, or where the offense might be committed unwittingly, such penalties are grossly improper. But when the situation is such that the party entitled to complain or who might allege injury by reason of the alleged offense is to be the beneficiary of the penalty, and especially, as in the present bill, is to absorb the entire penalty, it is obviously contrary to reason and good morals to make the penalty materially exceed the damage, because there is thereby created a motive on the part of the person alleging injury to promote and encourage surreptitiously the alleged offense until it has grown to large proportions, so that he may thereby reap a greater benefit from the trespass than he could possibly have reaped otherwise from the property trespassed upon. In the case of the perforated rolls, all these objections to severe penalties are found concurrent, for--