to authorize: (i) the adaptation of these works to instruments serving to reproduce them mechanically; (2) the pubHc performance of the same works by means of these instruments.
"The limitations and conditions relative to the application of this article shall be determined by the domestic legislation of each country in its own case; but all limitations and conditions of this nature shall have an effect strictly limited to the country which shall have adopted them.
"The provisions of paragraph I have no retroactive effect, and therefore are not applicable in a country of the Union to works which, in that country, shall have been lawfully adapted to mechanical instruments before the going into force of the present Convention.
"The adaptations made by virtue of paragraphs 2 and 3 of this article and imported without the authorization of the parties interested into a country where they are not lawful, may be seized there."
German precedentsIn Germany, under the general copyright law of 1870, the higher courts gave to musical composers control over mechanical reproductions from which, as the industry grew, the authors or publishers obtained some little return. But succeeding the adoption of the permissive clause in the Berne convention of 1886, it was proposed in the new copyright law to free mechanical reproductions from the control of the composer. A protest was at once made by musical authors and publishers, which resulted in a modification of the form proposed by the government and the addition of a clause giving control where the reproduction involved personal interpretation. In this form the "unfortunate section 22" became part of the law of 1 90 1 relating to copyright in literary and musical works. Section 22 was in the following language:
