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 fact, though all English and American statutes have been avowedly for
"the encouragement of learning" and "the progress of science and useful
arts," the courts have construed the laws to cover in the widest sense
any "useful book." The courts have indeed denied copyright protection
only to works having absolutely no literary quality, such as
advertisements (unless they contain original literary matter) and
advertising cuts, labels, blank books, or blank forms. Even booksellers'
and other trade catalogues, having descriptive notes or distinctive
arrangement and combination, can be copyrighted. Compilations of
existing materials, from common sources, arranged and combined in an
original and useful form, receive the same protection as wholly original
matter. Drone schedules English or American judicial constructions
extending this principle to: (1) general miscellaneous compilations; (2)
annotations consisting of common materials; (3) dictionaries; (4) books
of chronology; (5) gazetteers; (6) itineraries, road and guide books;
(7) directories; (8) maps and charts; (9) calendars; (10) catalogues;
(11) mathematical tables; (12) a list of hounds; (13) abstracts of
titles to lands; and collections of (14) statistics, (15) statutory
forms, (16) recipes, and (17) designs--several of which classes are now
specifically included in the new American statute. Later decisions have
confirmed several of these categories and have specified also (18)
trotting records; (19) racing charts; (20) newspaper reports of public
speeches; (21) telegraphic codes; (22) mining reports; (23) a
tradesman's alphabetical list of wares; (24) a list of public documents;
(25) mathematical calculations; (26) legal forms; (27) an application
form for membership; (28) complications of railroad time-tables; (29)
commercial circulars, protected by a Canadian decision; (30) school
registers, and (31) stud book list of horses.
{Sidenote: Exclusions adjudicated}
On the other hand, the courts have declined to include as proper
subjects of copyright (a) methods or plans, as for compiling
credit-ratings or systems, as in the case of (b) shorthand, (c) trading
stamps or coupons as described in a copyrighted advertising pamphlet, or
(d) of letter-file indexes; (e) a sleeve pattern chart; (f) the face of
a barometer; (g) a railway ticket designed for punching; (h) a day's
sporting tips; (i) blank books; or (j) blank forms, as a cricket
score-card; and (k) monograms.
{Sidenote: Inclusions defined}
In the new Rules and Regulations of the Copyright Office promulgated as
approved by the Librarian of Congress in 1910 as Bulletin No. 15, it is
said as to books:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account