284 COPYRIGHT
bound abroad cannot be re-imported into the United States, although the sheets were manufactured here under the provisions of the law of 1 89 1, previous to July I, 1909. These books were accordingly denied importation and had to be returned to the country whence they were exported as bound. The opinion of Attorney-General Wickersham of November 17, 1909, on which the Treasury ruling was based, says:
"This language [of sec. 31] clearly embraces every American copyright in a book, regardless of whether that copyright was obtained under the copyright laws embodied in the Revised Statutes, or the act of 1891, or the copyright act of 1909. If the statute were other- wise, it would have produced the anomalous condi- tion that books copyrighted prior to March 3, 1891, would not be prohibited from importation by any manufacturing provision; that books copyrighted after March 3, 1891, and prior to July I, 1909, the date upon which the act of March 4, 1909, became effective, would be prohibited unless printed from type set in the United States or from plates made from type set in the United States, while books copyrighted after July i, 1909, would be prohibited if not printed from type set in the United States or from plates made from type set therein, and the printing and binding both performed within the limits of the United States." Importation Where a work in a foreign language is copyrighted °f J"^'^" in the United States, it was held by the Secretary of the Treasury (Treas. dec. no. 22751) in 1901, on advice of the Attorney-General, under the act of 1891, in the case of Rostand's "L'Aiglon," that the original French edition must be denied importation under the prohibition feature of the manufacturing clause; but, as under the new code of 1909, " the origi- nal text of a work of foreign origin in a language
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