But it is believed that section 4966 of the present statute has been tacitly treated as meaning something which the legislature in enacting it never intended, and that the provisions in the present bill, developing into express terms that which has been tacitly treated as involved in the terms of said section of the present law, crystalizes into dangerous permanency a defect which would have been eliminated from the present statute whenever the United States courts had occasion to review it. Protection for public performance is justifiable only in respect to compositions which by their nature yield no considerable revenue to the author by the sale of copies or otherwise than by public performance. Dramatic compositions clearly fall within this class. A dramatic composition is written primarily to be performed and only incidentally to be read. Some dramatic compositions may have such literary character that they would be bought to be read and so little dramatic quality that they will not be largely performed; but the dramatic composition whose value is in performance and not in reading gets little protection from the copyright statute without special provision giving monopoly of public performance. A hundred copies will supply all the actors who need it; no one else wants it; but a million people will be glad to see it performed and will pay high prices for their seats. The dramatic writer must get his revenue from the million--not from the hundred--or he will fail of adequate compensation. Recognizing this situation, Congress, in 1870, enacted the following provision: "SEC. 4966. Any person publicly performing or representing any dramatic composition for which copyright has been obtained, without the consent of the proprietor or his heirs or assigns, shall be liable," etc. In 1897 the section was amended by inserting the provisions now contained in section 4966, making it include musical compositions, the words "or musical" being inserted after the word "dramatic" in the second line of above. There can be no reasonable doubt that the intention of the amendment of this section, by making it refer also to musical compositions, was to include musical-dramatic with other simple dramatic compositions; that is, to make the scope of the protection take in all compositions whose value rested in dramatic performance as distinguished from mere vocalization. The word "perform" in the section clearly points to this significance and intention.