Page:Copyright, Its History And Its Law (1912).djvu/91

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SCOPE
59

publication and therefore possibly beyond the copyright term of the original work, though on the expiration of the primary copyright any one else may make a translation or dramatization despite the continuing existence of the copyright in the authorized translation or dramatization. These subjects are more specifically discussed for translations under the subject-matter of copyright and for dramatizations under dramatic and musical copyright.

Oral deliveryThe exclusive right to deliver orally addresses and similar productions is now specifically included in the American law, as in the laws of some other countries, and probably involves the right to register, before publication, any literary production intended for oral delivery before it is printed in a book or periodical. Thus if Mr. Cable desires to include in his readings, especially if in public for profit, chapters from an unpublished novel, or a poet desires to protect his copyright in a poem which he publicly recites, it may be desirable that he should register such unpublished work under the provisions of the act for that purpose; although it is a generally accepted doctrine that oral delivery does not constitute publication, and that the matter orally delivered may thus be protected at common law.

"Publicly
and for pro-
fit"
It should be noted that in the case of a lecture or other work for oral delivery and of a musical composition, the exclusive right is given for its delivery or performance " publicly and for profit," and in the case of a drama, "publicly," the words for profit being, probably by inadvertence, omitted. There is some question, therefore, whether a copyrighted lecture, drama, or musical composition can be given without consent of the author privately, or, except in the case of a drama, gratuitously before the public. In view of the special exception (sec. 28) exempting oratorios, fit"