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that “ every person who should invent and design, engrave, etch, or work in mezzotinto or chiaroscuro, any historical or other print or prints, should have the sole right and liberty of printing and representing the same for the term of fourteen years, to commence from the day of the first publishing thereof, which shall be truly engraved with the name of the proprietor on each plate, and printed on every such print or prints.” The penalty for piracy was the forfeiture of the plate and all prints, with a fine of 5s. for every pirated print. Thirty-one years later (1766), in the reign of George III., a second Engraving Act was passed “to amend and render more effectual ” the first Act, and “ for vesting and securing to Jane Hogarth, widow, the property in certain prints,” which extended the protection beyond the designer, who was also engraver, to any person who, not being himself a designer, made, or caused to be made, an engraving from any picture or other work of art. Jane Hogarth, the widow of the painter, found herself nearing the termination of the fourteen years’ term of copyright granted by the first Act, with the probability that immediately on its expiry the engravings of her husband then on sale, and on which her livelihood depended, would be immediately pirated. It was mainly to save her from the loss of her livelihood that this second Copyright Bill extended the term of the copyright to twenty-eight years. The engravers and publishers of the day were not overscrupulous, and they sought to evade the penalties of the copyright Acts by taking the designs, and adding to them or taking from them, or both, and producing fresh engravings, seeking to make it appear that they were producing new works. These practices assumed such proportions that it became necessary, eleven years after the passing of the second Act (1777), to call upon Parliament to put through another short measure still further to protect the engraver, by prohibiting the copying “ in whole or in part” (a clause not contained in the previous Acts), by varying, adding to, or diminishing from, the main design of an engraving without the express consent of the proprietor or proprietors. These three Acts remain in force to the present day. In 1852, in an international copyright Act, it was declared that the Engraving Acts collectively were intended to include prints taken by lithography or any other mechanical process. Artistic Copyright. In May 1814 an Act was passed to give protection to History.—Copyright, whether artistic or literary, is the sculptors. The term of copyright for sculptors was a creation of statute. Attempts were made by the first peculiar one. It was to last for fourteen years, with the claimants of copyright to place property in ideas on a proviso that, should the author be still alive, he should enjoy footing with other forms of property, and to claim for it a further period of fourteen years, the copyright returning rights in perpetuity; but in the year 1774 a decision to him for the second fourteen should he have disposed of in the House of Lords made it clear that neither public it for the first period. It is a condition of copyright with opinion nor law would recognize copyright as property in the sculptor that the author must put his name with the this sense. Since that time it has been recognized that date upon every work before putting it forth or publishing property in copyright exists only by statute, and that its it. A curious and interesting point in the interpretation terms and conditions depend entirely upon Acts of the of this Act is that according to the opinion of eminent Legislature, and are liable at all times to alteration at the jurists it is necessary to an infringement of the copyright will of Parliament. Literary authors had protection for of a piece of sculpture that the copy of it must take the their work much earlier than artists. The first literary form of another piece of sculpture; that a photograph, copyright Act came into existence in the reign of Queen drawing, or engraving of a piece of sculpture is not to be Anne, but it was not until the reign of George II. that considered a reproduction of it, and is, therefore, not an the Legislature afforded any protection for the work of infringement of the sculptor’s copyright. The Act of 1862. — Strange as it may seem, _ painting artists. The first Artists’ Copyright Bill was passed in the interest of William Hogarth, one of the greatest of was the last branch of the arts to receive copyright proEnglish painters, who was engraver as well as painter, tection. The cause of the painters was taken up by the and who devoted a considerable portion of his time to Society of Arts, who endeavoured, in the first instance, to engraving his own works. No sooner, however, were pass an amendment and consolidation Bill dealing with these published than his market was seriously damaged engraving, sculpture, and painting; but, failing in their by the issue of inferior copies of his engravings by other first effort, they limited their second to an attempt to pass publishers. To protect Hogarth from such piracy an a Bill in favour of painting, drawing, and photography. Act was passed on 24th June 1735, which provided It was in the year 1862 that this Act, having passed
author or artist to the control of his production and the interests of American workmen ; the attempt to legislate for them jointly has brought about no little confusion and inequity. If American working men cannot secure a living in competition with labourers on the other side of the Atlantic, their needs should be cared for under the provisions of the protective tariff. It is, however, the belief of a large number of those who are engaged in the manufacturing of books that, with his advanced methods of work, the skilled American labourer has no reason to dread the competition of European craftsmen. With this manufacturing condition out of the way, there would be nothing to prevent the United States from becoming a party to the Convention of Bern. This would place intellectual property on both sides of the Atlantic on the same footing. . 2. The requirement of publication m the United States simultaneously with that in the country of origin, practically debars the authors of France, Cermany, and other Continental countries from securing any substantial benefit from the publication of American editions of their works, although these states have extended to American authors, without restrictions, the full advantage of their statutes. The amended law should provide that a work in a foreign language, emanating from a country with which the United States has copyright relations, should be registered for copyright in regular course with the deposit for purposes of identification of two copies of the work in the text of the original, and with the further deposit of a copy of the titlepage in English. The law should provide that, in case within a specified term (say twelve months) there should be published a version in English, which had been printed from type set within the United States, and which had in other respects complied with the conditions of the American law, the work should secure the full protection of American copyright, not only for the English version as copyrighted, but for the original text. Under the present conditions the copyrighting of an American edition does not protect the original text from unauthorized translations. If, within the term specified, no edition should be produced for which the conditions of the American Act had been complied with, the right to reproduce the work in English might then fall into the public domain. A provision to such effect, while by no means sufficient to do full justice to Continental authors, would secure for such of these authors, whose books were available for the American-reading public, the substantial advantages of American copyright. _ . . 3. The term of copyright in force in the United States is shorter than that accorded under the law of any other literature-producing country, excepting Greece. In France and in Russia the term covers the life of the author, and fifty years thereafter. In Germany, since 1834, the term has been for the life of the author and for thirty years thereafter. Under such a term of property the author is in a position to work, not only for himself, but for his children. The United States, with its increasingly important literary interests, ought not to be contented with a shorter term than that in force in Germany. (g. H. P*.)
