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lishers who are interested in serving that class of clients, but on the part of the clients themselves. American buyers want the best books, and an American is entitled to the best there is, and they may be hampered in getting bindings of single copies by reason of the fact that a book coming back here carries in its binding a technical infringement of this provision, which would subject the copyright to forfeiture.

Representative CURRIER. If the book was originally bound in this country it would certainly answer the requirement. Suppose it were cheaply bound here, and then sent abroad to be rebound?

Mr. PUTNAM. That is not the usual procedure. We will say there is an edition of 5,000 copies printed here, and 10 copies are sent to Paris or Florence for art binding.

Representative CURRIER. But if a man desires to send a book abroad to be bound, could he not send it abroad just as well in a cheap binding, which could be there stripped off?

Mr. PUTNAM. You could not get the artistic result, because it would be cut. It must be folded and bound from the unfolded sheets. The cloth books are all cut by the binder.

Representative CURRIER. Could not a cheap binding be put on a book with uncut leaves?

Mr. PUTNAM. It would be a dear binding when you got it on. It would be an expensive and wasteful operation to put a temporary cover on a book, which you would take off again. The publishers want to retain the privilege of sending a small number of copies, without any cover at all, abroad for artistic binding, and let them come back again.

Representative CURRIER. That is only for wealthy clients?

Mr. PUTNAM. It is only for wealthy clients. It is only a handful of business, but it is an important handful of business as having to do with the higher education of the country.

Representative CURRIER. So if the binding here was a little expensive it would cut very little figure with the class of people who would want the foreign binding.

Mr. PUTNAM. The cost of the cover would be of no importance, but spoiling the book for the work of the hand binder would be.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there not enough of that class of binding demanded by American citizens to justify the bookbinders of this country in giving just as good bookbinding as you can secure anywhere in the world?

Mr. PUTNAM. I am a binder myself, and we do artistic binding, and we do the best we can; but we recognize that abroad they have a higher art in binding, as in other things. There is an individuality which should have its play. The theory is that we get it through the operation of the tariff law. But this is a practical importation of artistic work from individual artists. We have American painters in oil and American sculptors, and they do individual work of the highest character, but that is no reason why we should not be permitted to enjoy the art work of Europe. This operates as a prohibition.

Representative SULZER. Just in this connection, can the American artisan do just as good work in bookbinding as the foreigner?

Mr. PUTNAM. In some classes better; but so far as this particular matter is concerned it is difficult to make a comparison of individual

efforts. We can not say that the American is better than the foreigner. In some work he is. In others he does not equal the foreigner. It is an individual matter. You can not generalize on it.

Representative CURRIER. I suppose you know there is great complaint on the part of labor unions that this does not go far enough; that the photoengravers are not protected by this section; that lithographers all over the country are objecting to this provision exempting lithographs representing subjects located in a foreign country. My mail has been filled with protests against that provision.

Mr. PUTNAM. I want to give a word to your honorable body in regard to that provision. I have stated practically all there is to say in regard to the other.

As Mr. Currier has referred to the lithographic section, which is logically connected with this as an addition to the manufacturing provision, I will make reference now, with your permission, to the history of the provision as it now stands. We had occasion during the conferences, which lasted for some eighteen months, to discuss with our friends representing the lithographic groups very fully, forward and backward, this requirement, and we finally arrived at a compromise, which was as illogical as most compromises are, and got the section as now worded in your bill.

It would be true in any case, and it must of necessity be true in this case, that American books, books printed here, whether copyrighted or not, which are to be illustrated with lithographs, will have 999 out of 1,000 lithographs manufactured here. The mass of the business will be so done. With that I pointed out, when we were discussing this matter with the lithographers in our conference, in regard to certain classes of lithographic work to be done abroad, to be connected with texts to be copyrighted here, that there was certain lithographic work which could practically only be done abroad. Take the case of a physician's work. The American copyright is on the same basis as the French Government gives a copyright to the American author. We are all publishing French scientific books or German books. In the first place, there is the text of the treatise, and then connected with the text of the treatise the lithographs to illustrate his treatise. The scientist must have that lithographic work done under his own supervision and in connection with the pathological or clinical or hospital subjects which are the basis of the work.

Representative CURRIER. Are those reproduced from photographs? Mr. PUTNAM. I am not sure that the practice is uniform. In many cases they are, but in other cases the physician makes the drawings and puts in the tints which are to serve as a suggestion or guide to the lithographic artist.

Representative CURRIER. Why could not the lithograph be made in this country from a sketch?

Mr. PUTNAM. The scientific man or the physician, not as a model, but as a suggestion, stands over the lithographer and watches the result of experiment until they get the thing as it ought to be. If we deny a copyright to a lithograph connected with the texts of books of foreign authors, which texts are to be printed here in American editions, we simply deny to the foreign authors an American copyright. In other words, we give it with the right hand and take it away with the left, and we give an additional and legitimate cause of grievance to Germany, France, and Italy, to countries of that group,

which are now giving to American citizens full copyright privileges. I have had occasion three times within the last eight years to stand up in conventions of continental authors and publishers to prevent representations being made to their respective governments for the cancellation of their copyright relations with the United States on the ground that we were not treating them equitably and not giving them what they were giving to us. I have succeeded mainly because certain bills were pending here which were to remedy the evils complained of.

Representative CURRIER. Then what would you say if the committee changed that so as to apply simply to scientific works? I suppose 99 per cent of the cheap lithographs of American subjects sold in this country are made abroad.

Mr. PUTNAM. I used the scientific as my first division, because I wanted to refer to a couple other divisions of the same matter. The lithographers have properly secured under the protective tariff system in force in our country a tariff of 35 per cent against importations. So far as concerns these cheap lithographs that you refer to, you will find, irrespective of the copyright, that the American manufacturer, as we publishing manufacturers have to do, has to take his chance with competitors abroad with the protection under the tariff. Representative CURRIER. I realize that.

MR. PUTNAM. I suppose if 35 per cent is not considered high enough to give lithographers the protection they require, it could be made higher.

Representative CURRIER. I made that suggestion to show that lithographs of subjects in a foreign country do not necessarily have to work on the ground, if 99 per cent of the lithographs of American subjects are now worked out in Germany.

Mr. PUTNAM. That may be. But how badly or how well are they done? I am speaking of the higher group of art productions. I refer in the first place to the rights of foreign authors under our international obligations to them, but I may now refer to the rights of American citizens residing abroad-scientists doing scientific work abroad, artists doing art work abroad; and all American artists of education spend a number of years abroad. While there they have the opportunity to earn their livelihood in part by doing art work. They should have the lithographic designing done under their own supervision. If an artistic reproduction is to be made of Mount Blanc or St. Peter's in Rome or any other point, the artistic effect is very much more successful-I do not say it is impossible to produce it on this side, but it is much more effective if the lithographic artist can have directly under his observation the object of the original work. We do do good lithographic work on this side, but the best lithographic work of an art subject is made when the lithographer is in touch with the subject. If an American writes a book having to do with art and wants to have his book illustrated in the most effective lithographic method, he goes abroad and works there with the lithographer and produces the illustrations for the book. But under this provision he is then forbidden to retain the copyright if the lithographic illustrations produced abroad are associated with the text. That is not an additional advantage given to the American lithographer, but it is a prohibition. You prohibit our American art workers, our American science workers, who are workers just as much as the mechanical workers, workers

representing the higher education of this country, from doing their science and art work as they want to do it. I do not believe that you will decide that that is in line with the higher educational policy of this country.

I may refer also to the fact that it will constitute a legitimate constitutional grievance on the part of countries with which we are in copyright relations. There is consistency in putting in here the prohibition as to printing, but it is different as to lithographic work, and I can point out the substantial difference. The typesetting that is done here does not modify in any way the conditions of publishing, but if the lithographic work must be done here it would modify the whole condition so far as to forfeit the copyright in a text which is sufficiently important to be accompanied by the highest grade illustrations produced where they ought to be produced. The loss to the American lithographers in such a matter would not be a loss. They would have as they now have, and as they are entitled to have, for they are good workmen, the large mass of the business. I am not speaking of the big group of books, but of a very important group of businessthe dozens and possibly hundreds of books on science and art, and art is the more important and the more essential.

The CHAIRMAN. Section 25 is the next one that you mentioned in your letter.

Mr. PUTNAM. Section 26 is what I have marked here. Possibly it is wrongly written in the letter to you.

The CHAIRMAN. In this letter it is 25.

Mr. PUTNAM. I should have said 26.

The provision as worded by Senator Kittredge in his bill, with which Mr. Barchfeld's bill is in accord, in regard to the extension of copyrights, represents the consensus of opinion arrived at by the authors and publishers after a discussion extending over some eighteen months. I appear here as two single gentlemen rolled into one. I speak for two leagues. We desire to secure this particularly for the older authors, some of whom are no longer with us, notably Mr. Stedman.

Representative CURRIER. Would not their rights be absolutely protected by a renewal period, so far as the authors themselves are concerned, distinguished from the publishers? Would it not often. be to the author's advantage to have a renewal term instead of one fixed period?

Mr. PUTNAM. The renewal term which you have in your mind as desirable was really provided for in this provision which Senator Kittredge has adopted and which has been modified in the SmootCurrier bill. It was designed to secure for the authors the extension of the copyright and it was also desired to secure the advantage of that extension for their widows or children. It was pointed out that if a copyright could be revived after the forty-two years which constitutes the largest possible term under the existing statute, a publisher who had a large investment in plates and in publishing rights might risk the forfeiture of that property. If, for instance, Houghton, Mifflin & Company, representing the old firm of Ticknor & Fields, and with a long list of American authors, were publishing as they are publishing a hundred or more important books under a royalty arrangement, and if under the agreement as it had at first been shaped they knew, as they did know, that for forty-two years

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they would have the exclusive control under agreement with the author, they would also know that at the end of that forty-two years they would have the right to continue publishing, subject to the open competition of the market. With that knowledge under the law they made investments. The investments made by that particular firm under the law as it stands amount to hundreds of thousand of dollars. The extension of the copyright giving to the author a new exclusive control after the expiration of his first term would of course place the author in a position to say to the publisher, "You renew this agreement under my terms or you must forfeit the investment you have made in the stereotype or electrotype plates and in the publishing expenditures you have made. Come to my terms or I will go to some other publisher."

Representative CURRIER. As it is, suppose the publisher says to the author "You consent to this on my terms." What then?

Mr. PUTNAM. I want to say that notwithstanding that certainty of risk the publishers agree with the Authors' League that they should have that extension of copyright for all books of which they still retain under original agreement the control of the copyright and that the publishers should accept that risk of losing their entire investment in stereotype or electrotype plates.

The CHAIRMAN. I wish to say that all the letters I have received from authors, and they are many, object to that very provision which you speak of. They want to carry out whatever their original contract may be with the publisher, and when that contract is carried out as originally agreed to, they want it to cease; and if there is another contract to be made they want to be at liberty not only to make a contract with their original publisher, but with any other publisher who may perhaps give them better terms than the original publisher.

Mr. PUTNAM. The clause as worded in the Kittredge bill gives them that privilege for all the copyrights which have not been sold outright, of which the authors or their widows or children retain the ownership. But the extension of the copyright in those books involves the risk of a very serious loss of property on the part of publishers who have made investments under the protection of the existing law, amounting to a great many thousands of dollars. The consensus of opinion among the authors and they will be here to-morrow to confirm that expression of opinion which they arrived at after these various discussions-was in favor of extending the copyright of that class of books in which they still retained ownership of the copyright, but as to the class of books for which the copyright had been sold outright, the application for the extension of the copyright must be joined in by the purchaser or his representative. The reason for that is obvious under several headings. The most important consideration is in connection with composite works cyclopedias and what not. Take a law-publishing concern, such as the West Publishing Company. It has millions of dollars invested in law encyclopedias. They have bought contributions from several hundred contributors at the prices fixed-prices satisfactory to the contributors. Under the law as it now exists, they have full control of those contributions. If that copyright, after the termination of the twentyeight years and usually composite works are not extended with the fourteen years, it is very seldom that the extension is made-if at the

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