published in reviews, magazines, or other periodical works of a like nature, after the term of twenty-eight years from the first publication thereof respectively, the right of publishing the same in a separate form is to revert to the author for the remainder of the term of copyright given by the act; and during the term of twenty-eight years, the proprietor of the work is not at liberty to publish any such essay, article, &c. separately, without the consent of the author or his assigns; but authors who have reserved to themselves the right to publish their articles in a separate form, within the twenty-eight years, are to have the copyright in their compositions when published in a separate form, without prejudice to the right of the proprietor of the work in which they originally appeared.1 VIII. ENGRAVINGS, MAPS AND CHARTS. In the United States, engravings, maps and charts are within the protection of the act of 3d February, 1831, which gives the sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing and vending the same, for a period of twenty-eight years, to any person or persons, a citizen or citizens of the United States, or resident therein, his executors, administrators, or assigns, who shall invent, design, etch, engrave, work, or cause to be engraved, etched, or worked from his own design, any print or engraving, or who shall be the author or authors of any map or chart. 1 5 & 6 Vict. c. 45, § 18. See Appendix. In England, by the 8 George II. c. 13, the property in historical and other prints was vested in engravers, who took from their own designs, for a period of fourteen years.1 By the 7 George III. c. 38, § 1, the benefit of the former statute was extended to the prints of any portrait, conversation, landscape, or architecture, map, chart, or plan, or any other prints whatsoever, whether taken from the artist's own original designs, or from any picture, drawing, model, or sculpture, either ancient or modern; and the term of enjoying the right was in all cases enlarged to twenty-eight years." The 17 George III. c. 57, enabled the engravers of prints to recover certain penalties for the violation of their right.3 These statutes did not expressly vest the property in prints in the assignees of the artist, as well as in himself. But inasmuch as the 8 George II. c. 13, § 2, enabled any purchaser of a plate from the original proprietors to print and reprint from the same, without incurring the penalties, and the first section of the same act made it necessary, before a print can be copied, to obtain the consent of the proprietor, in writing, signed in the presence of two witnesses; it was held that the assignee of a print may maintain an action against any person who has pirated it.* It seems that the plates, which are introduced to ornament or illustrate a book, are within the protec 1 See Appendix. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 41. 4 Thompson v. Symonds, 5 T. R. tion of these statutes. In an action on the case, for pirating a book, and certain prints contained in it, in which the plaintiff declared separately for the piracy of his prints on the act 17 George III. c. 57, Lord Ellenborough directed the jury to find separate damages for the letter-press and the prints. It seems, too, that a writer, treating the same subject in original letter-press, cannot copy and use the plates published by a former writer in illustration of that subject.2 The property in an engraving may consist in the subject and design, or in the particular print, and not in the subject and design. It is not very easy, however, to define, in general terms, when the property will be in the design and subject, and when in the particular print only; but the distinction. may be illustrated by particular cases. Thus, where the subject and design are purely the product of the artist's imagination, his property will consist in both subject and design, and the particular print. His property in the print itself would be violated by a copy or a fac-simile; and his property in the subject and design would be violated by an imitation falling short of a fac-simile, but in which the alterations should be merely colorable. Thus, where the plaintiff, in a work on the art of fencing, had introduced figures to illustrate the different positions in fencing, 3 near to the original as to give every person seeing it, the idea created by the original. Per Bailey, J. in West v. Francis, 5 B. & Ald. 737, Lord Ellenborough said, that the question was, as to the prints, whether the defendant had copied the main design; and if there was such a similitude and conformity between the prints, that the person who executed the one set must have used the others as a model, he would in that case be a copyist of the main design.1 But where the engraving is merely a print of a drawing taken from an object in nature, or a work of art, which anybody is at liberty to copy, the property of the artist is merely in his particular print; but to this extent he has a property, which has been held to be clearly within the protection of the statutes. Thus, on an application to Lord Hardwicke, to restrain the defendant from copying and publishing the plates of a work on botany, his lordship said, "the defendant, to make out the case he aims at, must show me that these prints of medicinal plants are in any other book or herbal whatsoever, in the same manner and form as they are represented here, for they are represented in all their several gradations the flower and the flower-cup, the seed-vessel, and the seed." So, where the plaintiff, in a work on the antiquities of Greece, had published prints taken from drawings made by himself, Lord Eldon granted an injunction against a direct copying, applying the doctrine applicable to books, that any 94. - 2 Roworth v. Wilkes, 1 Campb. 2 Blackwell v. Harper, 2 Atk. 92. His lordship also said, "I do not think the act [8 Geo. II. c. 13,] confines it merely to invention; as, for instance, an allegorical or fabulous representation; nor to historical only, as the design of a battle, &c., but it means the designing or engraving anything that is already in nature." one was at liberty to make new original drawings of the subjects, but not to copy the work of another.1 But where a work of art is the subject of the engraving, any person has a right to copy it, provided he goes to the original and not to a prior engraving; nor can a prior engraver, by obtaining the permission of the owner of a picture to copy it, acquire any monopoly in the subject, which will prevent a subsequent engraver from copying from the same picture.2 There can be no property in an engraving of an obscene, immoral, or libellous nature.3 Maps, charts, and plans are included, under the term "book," in all the benefits of the act 5 and 6 Vict. c. 45.4 3 IX. SCULPTURE. In the United States, the sole right and property of an artist in original sculpture, is protected for seven years, by a law which requires an entry to be made at the Patent Office. This protection extends to any citizen or citizens, alien or aliens, having resided one year in the United States, and taken the oath of his or their intention to become a citizen or citizens. In England, by the 54 George III. c. 56, the sole right and property of every new and original sculpture, model, copy or cast of the human figure, or of any bust, or any part of the human figure, clothed in drapery or otherwise; 1 Wilkins v. kie's N. P. C. 548. * Fores v. Johnes, 4 Esp. N. P. C. 97. Du Bost v. Beresford, 2 |