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COPYING 



COPYRIGHT 



any of the zincotype processes may be employed. 

 By this process, also, plates to reprint steel-engrav- 

 ings can be produced from any printed engraving 

 (see ENGRAVING). For reproducing drawings exe- 

 cuted otherwise than in line, photographs from 

 nature, or paintings, there are many processes 

 which will also be described in the same article. 



Copying in photography, that is, the method of 

 copying pictures and other drawings by the camera, 

 will be described under PHOTOGRAPHY. 



Drawings for wood-engravings are now seldom 

 made directly on the wood, but executed on paper 

 or cardboard, and copied by photography on to the 

 wood. By this means the drawing need not be so 

 minute as the required engraving, but may be of 

 any convenient size. The process employed will 

 also be described under PHOTOGRAPHY. 



Copyright is the exclusive right to multiply 

 copies of a written or printed composition, or of a 

 work of art. Such rights were claimed by authors 

 even before the introduction of printing. After 

 the invention of the printing-press, the right to 

 publish books became the subject of licenses 

 and patents. In. Chambers's Domestic Annals of 

 Scotland, under date November 9, 1699, may be 

 seen a warrant of the Privy-council authorising 

 George Mossman, stationer in Edinburgh, ' to print 

 and sell the works of the learned Mr George 

 Buchanan, in one volume in folio, or by parts in 

 lesser volumes, and forbidding all others to print, 

 import, or sell the whole or any part of the said 

 Mr George his works, in any volume or character, 

 for the space of nineteen years. ' Similar privileges 

 were granted in England ; but all such monopolies 

 were regarded with suspicion by common lawyers. 

 The common law affords a certain measure of 

 protection to works unpublished, or published only 

 for a limited purpose. The writer of a letter, for 

 example, transfers his property in it to the receiver ; 

 but the receiver has no right to print it for sale or 

 distribution without the writer's consent. The copy- 

 right in published works is the creation of statute : 

 the first Copyright Act was passed in 1709, and by 

 virtue of its provisions authors acquired the sole 

 liberty of printing their books during a term of 

 fourteen years from first publication, and, if the 

 author should be living at the end of that time, 

 during a further term of fourteen years. While 

 this act was in force, Thomson sold the copyright 

 of his poems to Millar, a London bookseller. 

 Millar claimed the right to prevent the issue of 

 reprints by Donaldson ( of Edinburgh ) and others, 

 even after the statutory term had expired, on 

 the ground that an author had, at common law, 

 the sole right of printing his works. Out of this 

 dispute arose the famous cases of Millar v. Taylor, 

 and Donaldson v. Beckett, which led to a remark- 

 able difference of opinion among the judges. The 

 House of Lords decided that, if any common-law 

 right existed, it had been taken away by the 

 statute. 



At the union with Ireland, the Copyright Act 

 was extended to that country, and the trade in 

 cheap editions, printed in Dublin and secretly 

 imported into Great Britain, came to an end. In 

 1814 the term of copyright was extended to twenty- 

 eight years, and the residue of the author's life 

 if he were living at the end of the term. The 

 impetus given to literature at the beginning of 

 the present century, and especially the popularity 

 .attained by the works of Scott and Byron, greatly 

 increased the market value of copyright, and ulti- 

 mately led to further legislation in the interest of 

 authors and publishers. The basis of the existing 

 law is the Copyright Act of 1842, commonly known 

 as Talfourd's Act or Lord Mahon's Act. Macaulay's 

 speech in the House of Commons on the second 

 reading of this measure is one of his most successful 



parliamentary ( 

 far from beine: 



efforts. The law of copyright is still 



the subject are extremely ill drawn. In 1878 a 

 Royal Commission recommended ' that the law on 

 this subject should be reduced to an intelligible 

 and systematic form.' Pending the execution of 

 this useful design, the provisions of the existing 

 British law may be summarised as follows. 



Books. The term of copyright in books is forty- 

 two years, or the life of the author and seven years, 

 whichever of the two terms is the longer. No copy- 

 right can be enjoyed in seditious or immoral publica- 

 tions, or in books first published out of the United 

 Kingdom. A register of proprietors of copyright is 

 kept at Stationers' Hall, in which the owner of a 

 copyright may make an entry on payment of a fee 

 of 5s. Assignments may be made by entry in the 

 register. Non-registration does not affect the copy- 

 right, but only the right to sue in respect of the 

 infringement thereof. In case of infringement, the 

 owner of copyright may obtain an injunction from 

 the High Court (in Scotland, an interdict from the 

 Court of Session ) to restrain the issue of unauthor- 

 ised copies ; he may also bring an action and claim 

 damages. In such proceedings the defendant fre- 

 quently pleads that he has made only a fair use of 

 the plaintiff's work. The question, what is a fair 

 use, is a question of common sense,, rather than of 

 law. An author may resort to previous works for 

 facts and ideas ; he may extract or abridge the 

 copyright composition of another, provided he does 

 not actually copy it, or an unreasonably large part 

 of it, into his own book. Authors complain that 

 the law as it stands does not sufficiently protect 

 them against unfair use of their materials arid ideas. 

 The crown is said to have the sole right to 

 authorise the printing of Bibles, copies of the Book 

 of Common Prayer, the Westminster Confession of 

 Faith and Catechisms, and acts of parliament. 

 The universities are permitted to enjoy perpetual 

 copyright in works bequeathed to them. For 

 government publications, see BLUE-BOOKS. 



Encyclopaedias and Periodicals. Articles con- 

 tributed to publications of this class, and books pub- 

 lished in parts or series, belong to the proprietor. 

 But the proprietor may not publish them separately 

 without the writer's consent, and after twenty- 

 eight years the copyright reverts to the author. 



Dramas and Musical Pieces. These, if first pub- 

 lished in book-form, are subject to the same rules 

 as books. But if they are performed in public 

 before appearing in print, the author retains the 

 sole right of permitting them to be represented 

 during the term of copyright ; and this right is dis- 

 tinct from the copyrignt he acquires if his drama or 

 piece is published as a book. By an Act of 1882 

 the proprietor of a piece of music, desiring to reserve 

 the right of performance, must give notice to that 

 effect on the cover. Verses may not be taken from 

 a copyright work and set to music, for sale, without 

 permission. A novel may be dramatised without 

 the author's permission ; but if copies of the drama 

 are published containing passages borrowed in 

 substance from the novel, the author of the adapta- 

 tion is liable to an action. In the ' Little Lord 

 Fauntleroy Case ' ( 1888 ), the right to dramatise was 

 admitted, but it was held that the authoress could 

 restrain the publication of copies containing 

 passages which were taken from the novel without 

 alteration. Even distribution of copies to the 

 Lord Chamberlain and the actors was held an 

 infringement of her rights ; so that the right to 

 dramatise can only be exercised with precautions 

 which must greatly restrict it in practice. 



Lectures and Speeches. If a person delivers an 

 address to the general public, he has probably no 

 cause of action against any one who publishes a 

 report of what he says. But a person addressing a 



