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
It is admitted that the proposed act or any other of a similar
nature will raise the price of the very cheap reprints of English
stories yet to be written a few cents apiece. A pamphlet of that
sort now costing 20 cents will then cost 25 cents. Of the
additional price, 2 cents will go to the author and 3 cents will go
into better paper, better print, and better binding. For the 5
cents of increased cost an American story will be furnished oftener
than an English story, an American author will get pay for his
labor, and the reader will get a book that is 100 per cent better
than the old one in paper, print, and binding.
I submit that if an additional cost of 3 cents is to go into paper,
print, and binding, and will produce a book that is 100 per cent better
than the 20-cent book, and 2 cents of the increased price is to go to
the author, that the publisher would receive no benefit whatever; and
it is well to bear in mind that the disinterested patriots who
requested the passage of the international copyright law did so for the
purpose of benefiting not themselves, but the author of a book 2 cents
per copy, and the producer of paper, printing, and binding 3 cents per
copy, out of which they got nothing. It is the same gentlemen, as I
understood it, who were sponsors for that bill who are the sponsors for
this. Twenty cents per copy for a book costing 3 cents to produce shows
a profit somewhere of 666 per cent; and it is probable that they were
satisfied with that percentage. As a basis for further remark along
that line, I desire to draw your attention to section 13 on page 6 of
the bill, as I have it here.
Mr. PUTNAM. That is the library copy.
Mr. OGILVIE. It is section 13 of the third paragraph [reading]:
Any person who, for the purpose of obtaining a copyright, shall
knowingly be guilty of making a false affidavit as to his having
complied with the above conditions shall be deemed guilty of a
misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a
fine of not more than one thousand dollars, and all of his rights
and privileges under said copyright shall thereafter be forfeited.
The CHAIRMAN. For whom do you appear, Mr. Ogilvie?
Mr. OGILVIE. For myself as a publisher and for several other Chicago
publishers, none of whom were represented at or invited to the
conferences of which this hill is the result.
Mr. CHANEY. Had you no notice that there was going to be a conference?
Mr. OGILVIE. The first information that I had that there was a
conference was from a gentleman representing Lyon & Healy, of Chicago,
in the Manhattan Hotel in New York, last November. That was the first
intimation I had that there had been a conference. I knew that there
were likely to be some, but I had no notice of their dates.
Mr. CHANEY. We wanted you as well as everybody else.
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