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 an elaborate discussion of fundamental principles in his opinion in
Harper _v._ Donohue, in 1905, affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals
in 1906, Judge Sanborn analyzed the property rights of an author before
publication, after unrestricted publication and after publication under
the copyright acts. Among the rights before publication he mentions "the
right to sell and assign the author's interest, either absolutely or
conditionally, with or without qualification, limitation or restriction,
territorial or otherwise, by oral or written transfer. Such literary
property is not subject either to execution or taxation, because this
might include a forced sale, the very thing the owner has the right to
prevent." "Unrestricted publication," he says, "without copyright, is a
transfer to the public to do most of the things the author might do, in
common with the author, except all right of transfer and sale, which
remains to the author; but without advantage, since the work has become,
by the publication, common property." "The copyright acts," he
concludes, "substantially give the following additional rights: To
copyright, and thus secure the sole privilege of unlimited
multiplication and sale of copies; to sell or transfer the unlimited
right of reproduction, sale and publication, the limited right of serial
publication, the right of publication in book form, the right of
translation, the right of dramatization or one or more of these rights
in specific territory, and the right to secure a copyright either
generally, or in one or more countries whose laws permit it, either in
the name of the author or assignee. Also the right to the author to
license the sale or other restricted enjoyment of some lesser right,
without the power to copyright."
The courts have indeed held to very broad principles as to such rights.
In the case of Press Pub. Co. _v._ Monroe, the court said:
{Sidenote: Broad interpretation}
"The right of property includes the right to transfer the subject of it
or any interest in it by gift, grant, or device. And if the fruits of
mental effort are regarded as property, like all other possessions, they
descend to the legatees, the executors, and administrators of their
creditors; they pass by sale or gift to their transferees; the use of
them, limited or unlimited, goes to their licensees, and, logically, the
power of the State is bound to protect forever the successive owners in
the exclusive use and enjoyment thereof."
{Sidenote: Limits of protection}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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