344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



agreed that the book should be published without his name, and said 

 that his reason for withholding the manuscript was, that styling the 

 book on the title-page as being " by D. J. Kenny " would be a fraud 

 on the public, since Kenny had taken no part in preparing it. The 

 court decided in favor of the author. This is as much as to say that 

 a writer shall not be compelled to furnish manuscript which he with- 

 holds because he knows it will be published under another man's name 

 in a way to deceive the public ; but whether an author has a legal right 

 to have his own name appear on a book he has sold outright is another 

 question. 



Dramatic copyright is a fruitful field of litigation. To protect a 

 play by any legal methods is difficult, and the laws having that aim 

 have not been so distinctly and judiciously framed as they might be. 

 Several suits have been brought, in this country, within the past year 

 or two, to protect noted plays. An English suit, which reached an 

 authoritative decision in the House of Lords, arose upon two rival 

 dramatizations of Eugene Sue's novel, " The Wandering Jew." This 

 novel was dramatized in France quite early after its publication, and 

 Englishman number one prepared a play described as an "adaptation" 

 of this French play. He, however, introduced two striking scenes : 

 one displaying the wandering Jew strolling in the Arctic regions (real 

 icebergs and a lime-light) and beholding, in a mysteriously managed 

 vision, the future perils and sufferings of his descendants ; the other 

 exhibiting the final triumph over the enemies' machinations, and intro- 

 ducing the figure of the Jew in the background, under brilliant red 

 lime-light. In the French play, these matters were not scenically rep- 

 sented, but were described in a prologue and epilogue ; perhaps be- 

 cause the devices of stage carpenters and property men were not suffi- 

 cient, fifty years ago, for such spectacles. Englishman number two 

 also dramatized the story, independently of and differently from the play 

 by Englishman number one, except that he took from the latter's play 

 the points of bringing these two matters into actual representation, 

 instead of leaving them to prologue and epilogue. For this he was 

 sued. But the courts, including the House of Lords, held that taking 

 the two scenes was not enough, under the circumstances, to constitute 

 an infringement. Copyright of a play is not infringed unless some 

 substantial, material part more than a new mode of representing a 

 couple of matters not really essential to the unity of the plot has 

 been taken. 



Another English decision has said that, when two or more persons 

 own together the copyright of an opera or drama, one can not repre- 

 sent it or license a manager to do so, without consent of the others. 



In respect to musical compositions, decisions have been made in 

 England upon the right to publish the songs " Kathleen Mavourneen " 

 and " Dermot Asthore," and the opera " Vert- Vert " ; but they turned 

 on the bargains the parties had made, and do not explain copyright 



