Page:Copyright, Its History And Its Law (1912).djvu/272

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COPYRIGHT

sketch and material and from directions given by the plaintiff, the English Court of Chancery, through Vice-Chancellor Bacon, held: "That the plaintiff cannot draw himself is a matter wholly unimportant if he has caused other persons to draw for him. He invents the subject of the design beyond all question . . . this is a work of diligence, industry, and for aught I know of genius on the part of the plaintiff." This case, which arose under the engravings acts in England, where an engraving may be copyrighted by an employer, — though the engraver of his own original design is the only person entitled to copyright, — is of wide bearing throughout artistic copyright. On the other hand, in 1898, in Bolton v. London Exhibitions Co., Justice Mathew in the Queen's Bench Division held that the employer, who had given to the engraver only a "general idea" of what he desired, was not the party liable for infringement.

PhotographsPhotographs, a modern development since the early copyright laws, were first included with negatives in the American act of 1865, in respect to which the action of Congress was upheld by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1884 in the decisive case of Burrow Giles Lith. Co. v. Sarony, and in the English fine arts copyright act of 1862. They are specifically named (sec. 5, j) in the new American code, and are included specifically or impliedly under copyright protection in most countries. The peculiar circumstance that the skill of the photographic artist is not necessarily shown in the composition of the picture taken, but more usually in the selection of subject or point of view and treatment in the process, leads to complexities as to authorship, ownership, etc. It is unneces sary and indeed undesirable to copyright separately a photograph of a copyrighted work, of which the general copyright is comprehensive of all reproduc-