Copyright: Its History and Its LawBowker, R. R. (Richard Rogers)
History
Copyright: Its History and Its Law
Bowker, R. R. (Richard Rogers)
Copyright -- History; Copyright -- United States -- History
The proviso (sec. 61) "that only one registration at one fee shall be
required in the case of several volumes of the same book deposited at
the same time" indicates that one copyright entry suffices for several
volumes simultaneously published, but each separate volume should
contain the notice. Volumes published separately, not only in successive
years but at successive dates within the year, should be separately
registered, and if published separately in successive years, must each
bear its copyright notice for the year of publication--this being the
direct sequence from the provision that copyright runs from the specific
date of publication and not from the year or date of registration. The
Copyright Office will, however, under the law, register for one fee
volumes or parts deposited at the same time, though published at various
times. In the case of a book issued in successive parts, of which only
the first part includes a title-page or title headings, the law is not
specific; but it seems probable that, in default of copyright notice and
registration for each part, the parts not bearing copyright notice might
be legally reprinted, and that the safer course is to place the
copyright notice on the first page of each part and register each part
separately, in which case the completed work should have the date or
dates of the year or years within which the several parts were
published. There seem to be no objections, within the law or from court
decisions, to coupling two dates in the same notice, in such cases as
"Copyright, 1910, 1911, by A. B.," though there is no specific decision
on this point. Under the previous law a book published in more than one
volume or part, the portions not complete in themselves, was probably
protected by copyright entry of the first part, all parts being of
course ultimately deposited; but the change in the new code basing
copyright on publication with notice, seems to change this rule of
practice. In the case of Dwight _v._ Appleton, in 1840, it was held that
as the statute did not expressly prescribe that the copyright notice
should appear in successive volumes after the first, this was not
necessary; but the application of this doubtful decision under the new
code would be more than questionable.
{Sidenote: Notice part of initial step}
It may be emphasized that publication with notice is the first step in
copyright under the new code, and that registration on deposit is the
secondary and completing act, and therefore that no registry in the
Copyright Office is necessary to authorize the printing of the copyright
notice, as was formerly the case.
{Sidenote: Extraterritorial notice}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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