IMPORTATION 287
unless the parts containing copyrighted poems had been printed from type set within the United States. Under this ruling, appHed to the present law, foreign- made copies of books containing American copy- righted poems or other articles, must be denied im- portation, because these copyrighted portions were not type-set, printed and bound in this country. It is possible, however, that under the rule " de minimis non curat lex," a court might not justify the prohi- bition of books incidentally containing in small pro- portion poems, extracts or other negligible items of American copyright. Thus if an English cyclopae- dia contained copyrighted contributions by Amer- can authors, such cyclopaedia would be denied admis- sion unless such contributions might be adjudged a negligible proportion of the work.
The prohibition of importation under the manu- Rebinding facturing proviso of copyrighted books not bound in abroad this country, has been construed by the Attorney- General, in an opinion of March I, 1910 (given in Treas. dec. no. 30414), to refer to original bindings and not to rebindings. "Manifestly a book is pro- duced within the meaning of section 3 1 when it is printed and bound; and the binding required to be done in the United States is the original binding, the one which enters into the original production of the book. When the manufacture of the book is thus completed it is entitled to all the protection offered by the copyright laws, and it may be exported and thereafter imported at the pleasure of the owner. There is, furthermore, nothing in the act to indicate any intention that a book may be deprived of this protection or right of importation when it has once been acquired. If it shall become necessary or proper that the book be rebound It is not thereby made a new book, but remains the same book, the one that
