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
Periodicals, as well as books, are subject to the manufacturing clause
(sec. 15), but affidavit is not required, and the importation of "a
foreign newspaper or magazine, although containing matter copyrighted in
the United States printed or reprinted by authority of the copyright
proprietor," is not prohibited (sec. 31, b), "unless such newspaper or
magazine contains also copyright matter printed or reprinted without
such authorization"--but these and other conditions are treated in later
chapters.
{Sidenote: Periodicals copyrightable by numbers}
The law provides (sec. 19) in the case of a periodical, that the notice
of copyright may be "either upon the title-page or upon the first page
of text of each separate number or under the title heading," "provided
that one notice of copyright in each volume or in each number of a
newspaper or periodical published shall suffice." This implies that each
issue of a periodical must be separately copyrighted as though a
separate work, although the title may be registered as a trade-mark and
possibly protected in this way. A daily newspaper may thus be
copyrighted day by day at a cost of $365 per year, so as to protect all
its original material of substantial literary value. This was done in
fact under the American law previous to 1909, though periodicals were
not specifically mentioned; a daily price-list of the New York Cotton
Exchange was so entered day by day, but the question of maintaining such
a copyright under the old law seems never to have been tested in the
courts, and New York dailies copyrighted their Sunday cable letters
separately.
{Sidenote: News}
In respect to news, there is no provision in the new code. A bill to
protect news for twenty-four hours was at one time before Congress, but
was never passed. There is, therefore, no copyright protection for news
as such, but the general copyright of the newspaper or a special
copyright may protect the form of a dispatch, letter, or article
containing news. Thus the New York _Herald_ copyrighted without question
Dr. Cook's Arctic dispatches, and the question as to the copyright by
the New York _Times_ of Commander Peary's dispatches describing his dash
for the pole hinged solely on the question of ownership or authority to
copyright, as set forth in a later chapter. But any such copyright could
not prevent publication by other newspapers of the news that Cook and
Peary claimed to have reached the North Pole, at stated dates and under
stated circumstances, though their own form of statement of the facts
could not lawfully be copied except within "fair use."
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