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
There are three ways for the composer to make a living by his music: By
sight or by sound or by touch. The notation of my compositions or the
compositions of any other composer for the blind must be entirely
different from the ordinary, because it must be read by the sense of
touch. The notation that is made for a combination of instruments is
brought out by sound. The claim that is made about these records is
that they can not be read by any notation--simply that no method has
been found to read them up to the present time, but there will be. Just
as the man who wanted to scan the heavens discovered a telescope to do
it. No doubt there will be found a way to read these records.
We are entirely in favor of this bill. The provisions satisfy us, and
we want to be protected in every possible form in our property. When
these perforated-roll companies and these phonograph companies take my
property and put it on their records they take something that I am
interested in and give me no interest in it. When they make money out
of my pieces I want a share of it.
Mr. SULZER. They are protected in their inventions?
Mr. SOUSA. Yes, sir.
Mr. SULZER. And why should you not be protected in yours?
Mr. SOUSA. That is my claim. They have to buy the brass that they make
their funnels out of, and they have to buy the wood that they make the
box out of, and the material for the disk; and that disk as it stands,
without the composition of an American composer on it, is not worth a
penny. Put the composition of an American composer on it and it is
worth $1.50. What makes the difference? The stuff that we write.
Mr. BONYNGE. What is the protection by the terms of this bill that is
given you?
Mr. SOUSA. That in any production of our music by any of these
mechanical instruments they must make a contract with us or with our
publishers; that they must pay us money for the use of our
compositions.
The publishers of this country make contracts with the composers, and
agree to give them a sum outright or a royalty on sales for each and
every copy that they publish and sell.
The companies making records for talking machines take one copy of a
copyrighted piece of music and produce by their method a thousand or
more disks, cylinders, or perforated rolls. If they would buy one copy
from my publishers and owners of my copyright and sell that one copy, I
would have no objection; but they take the copyrighted copy and make
what they claim is a noncopyrighted copy, sell it, and do not give the
owner of the copyright a penny of royalty for its use; and they could
not do this if the composer had not written it and the publisher had
not published it, and I want to be paid for the use they make of my
property.
Mr. WEBB. Does this affect records already made?
Mr. CURRIER. No; it does not affect existing copyrights.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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