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
Where these latter rights are not specifically granted by statute, the
rule has been established by the courts that they will be upheld so far
as necessarily inferable from the rights granted and not further. It is
under this rule that the greater number of the mooted questions in the
application of copyright law have arisen in respect to the scope of
copyright. Most of these specific rights are in fact necessary
inferences from the statute, in the protection of the property rights
therein conferred, but the courts will not go beyond fair construction
of the letter of the statute.
{Sidenote: Differentiated contracts}
In respect to the rights to give, lend, grant, manufacture, lease or
license, mortgage or devise copyright property, it may be said that
these are subsidiary rights conditioned on and essential to the general
right of property in copyrightable or copyrighted material. An author
may exercise any of these rights in respect to his unpublished work so
far as they are applicable to it, or to his copyrighted work after
publication; and either the copyrightable manuscript or the copyrighted
work may pass by inheritance. Thus an author may manufacture, or cause
to be manufactured, his unpublished work, and he may retain exclusive
control over the manufactured copies so long as he pleases before
publishing the work; and after publication (which involves placing on
public sale, or publicly distributing) he may exercise these rights
negatively by withdrawing his work from further sale. The English law,
however, contains a provision that in certain cases the Crown may
require continuance of publication.
{Sidenote: Enforcement in limited grants}
In respect to the right to limit the use of his work under his sale,
gift, loan, grant, lease, etc., for a special purpose or at a special
price, or for a special time, or in a special locality or to a special
person, these powers of limitation, though implied in the grant of
copyright, are dependent for their enforcement rather upon the law of
contracts than upon copyright law.
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