Mr. CHANEY. Do you not thereby exclude everything else? Mr. BETHUNE. No, sir. Mr. PUTNAM. If Mr. Bethune will permit me, Mr. Chairman, the attention of the committee may not have been called to the fact that there is a definition of the date of publication where copies are reproduced for sale or distribution. That is in section 63. It is limited to that because, after discussion, the conference did not seem to be able, or none of our advisers seemed to be able, to suggest a definition for "publication" in the case of works of art, for instance, of which copies are not reproduced. It seemed to those who were advising us a dangerous thing to attempt. Mr. BETHUNE. I think it would be, and I would not undertake it, but I think you will save trouble and expense to both the artists and the reproducers if you will say that the sale, whether private or public, and the public exhibition, shall be a publication of the painting. Mr. WEBB. That is what I asked you a while ago--if you did not think, speaking of "publication" here, that it would be sufficient if you were to let it read "public exhibition or offering the same for sale," either public or private sale? Mr. BETHUNE. To be included in the term "publication." Mr. WEBB. But can you think of any other instance where publication would mean something else than those things? Mr. BETHUNE. No; I can not for the moment, but I think there is danger, as the chairman has just stated--there may be many things which do not occur to me now, or would not occur to this committee, which should be contained in a definition. Mr. WEBB. I think you would complicate it very much if you used the word "publication" generally, and then undertook to define "publication" also, and intended that "publication" should cover more points than you specified. Mr. BETHUNE. Why, sir, this bill starts in and says that all the works of an author may be copyrighted. It then specifies some of the things, and it then says that the things specified are not all that may be included. Mr. WEBB. I understand that; but you, a man who is expert in these matters, can not state to us what other points would be covered than public exhibition or offering the same for sale. Mr. BETHUNE. I am not a reproducer; I am a lawyer, and the reproducers may be able to advise me. Mr. CHANEY. A lawyer is an originator always. [Laughter.] The CHAIRMAN. You spoke earlier in your remarks about the decisions of courts on this subject. Mr. BETHUNE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. And the lack of uniformity of the decisions relative to publication. Is not that fact due to the conditions which you now describe, and which have been suggested by different members of the committee--because what may be publication in one copyrightable article may not be publication in another? Mr. BETHUNE. Yes, sir. For that reason----