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
In the Berlin convention of 1908, artistic works were defined (art. 2,
par. 1) by specification as "drawings, paintings; works of architecture
and sculpture; engravings and lithographs; illustrations; geographical
charts; plans, sketches and plastic works relating to geography,
topography, architecture, or the sciences,"--thus covering architectural
works under general copyright. It was further provided by the convention
of 1908 (art. 2, par. 4) that "works of art applied to industry are
protected so far as the domestic legislation of each country allows."
And article 3 provided: "The present Convention applies to photographic
works and to works obtained by any process analogous to photography. The
contracting countries are pledged to guarantee protection to such
works."
{Sidenote: Exhibition not publication}
By the interpretative declaration adopted at Paris in 1896, it was
specifically provided (sec. 2): "By _published_ works must be understood
works actually issued to the public in one of the countries of the
Union. Consequently,... the exhibition of a work of art, does not
constitute publication in the sense of the aforementioned Acts." In the
Berlin convention of 1908 it was similarly provided (art. 4, par. 4)
that "the exhibition of a work of art and the construction of a work of
architecture do not constitute publication."
{Sidenote: Pan American Union}
In the Pan American Union, the Buenos Aires convention of 1910 covers
artistic works on the same basis as literary works, without special
provisions.
XIV
INFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHT: PIRACY, "FAIR USE" AND "UNFAIR COMPETITION"
{Sidenote: Piracy}
The word "piracy," since that gentle craft has disappeared from the high
seas, has come commonly into use to mean free-booting with reference to
literary property. In this sense it is used as early as 1771 by Luckombe
in his history of printing, in which he says: "They ... would suffer by
this act of piracy, since it was likely to prove a very bad edition." It
was especially applied in America more or less jocularly in the days
when there was no legal protection for works by English authors, to the
reprinting chiefly of English novels without authority from or payment
to their authors, when publishers whose imprints were chiefly on such
reprints were commonly known as pirates. This secondary meaning has been
accepted by the dictionary makers, and the use by English law
authorities, and now in the new American code, of the phrases "pirated
works" and "piratical copies," gives the word specific legal _status_.
It is the comprehensive term now in common and legal use to mean the
stealing of an author's work by reprinting it in full or in substantial
part without the authority of the copyright proprietor, and is in fact
an infringement at wholesale or otherwise of the author's exclusive
right. This is of course prohibited by the law to the full extent of its
jurisdiction and is punishable as prescribed in the law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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