Copyright notice

“ First, because the Work is part of a collective work, only one name is required in the copyright notice to protect all of the preexisting contributions. Second Request at 3, 6–7. Second, you argue that there has been an increasingly liberal application of the 1909 Act’s notice requirements by the courts so as to avoid forfeiture of copyright due to “technical error in copyright notices.” Id. at 3. Third, you submit that the notice contained in the Book should be sufficient because it serves the purpose of the notice requirement by informing the public of the existence of a copyright. ”

“ In the Second Request you assert that, while the 1909 Act requires a copyright notice that includes the name of the copyright proprietor in order to obtain copyright protection upon publication, the mere fact that the only notice in the Book was in Peter Benchley’s name – and not Roger Kastel’s – does not forfeit the Work into the public domain. ”

“ The printing of an American copyright notice on the foreign edition in anticipation of the publication of an American-made edition and the deposit of copies thereof within the statutory requirements is a questionable practice, as a failure to publish American-made copies in the United States, because of defective publishing arrangements or a printers' or binders' strike, would make such notice a false notice of copyright. ”

“ Goodis is one such example of this extension. In Goodis, the court held that “where a magazine has purchased the right of first publication under circumstances which show that the author has no intention to donate his work to the public, copyright notice in the magazine’s name is sufficient to obtain a valid copyright on behalf of the beneficial owner, the author or proprietor.” ”

“ In view of the uncertainty whether the unrestricted public exhibition of a work of art constitutes dedication and prevents copyright thereof, the carelessness of the purchaser of the original might raise question as to the validity of later copyright of reproductions by the artist. It is therefore unwise for an artist to sell the original of a work of art without affixing to it the required copyright notice and depositing one copy of an identifying photograph or print. ”

“ How have the public any means of determining whether "the bulk" of the books has contained a notice of copyright? Assume that I get hold of a book that contains no notice of copyright, and as a publisher I reprint it. It may have been an expensive book to reprint. It may have cost me several thousand dollars. What provision is there in this law to reimburse me for having innocently done that which, under the law, apparently I had a perfect right to do? Not any. I think there should be some provision to reimburse a man who does a thing of that kind under an apparent right. ”

“ If the artist exhibits a painting in a gallery and people pay fifty cents or nothing to go in and look at the painting, although there is a restriction, perhaps, made by the artist upon copying that painting, when the painting goes to that exhibition he should know at once, and the reproducer should know, that that being a public exhibition is a publication of the painting, and if the copyright notice is not on it then the artist has lost entirely the right to copyright it entirely. ”

“ The work could be in the public domain because the copyright owner failed to comply with one or more of the formalities required by U.S. copyright law, for instance by publishing the work without a proper copyright notice, failing to renew the copyright, or by failing to comply with the manufacturing clause or ad interim provisions of the copyright law. ”

“ We have gone out of the business of copyrighting, practically, as you will find if you will go to any exhibition, because we have not been able to get any relief in case our work had been infringed upon. We have always objected to the copyright notice which we have been obliged to put on the picture, because it is considered a disfigurement. ”

“ Any person who shall knowingly issue or sell any article bearing a notice of United States copyright which has not been copyrighted in this country, or who shall knowingly import any article bearing such notice or words of the same purport, which has not been copyrighted in this country, shall be liable to a fine of one hundred dollars," and the importation of any article bearing a notice of copyright when no American copyright exists is absolutely prohibited (sec. 30) . ”

“ Whenever any person in the absence of a license intends to use a copyrighted musical composition upon the [Pg 509] parts of instruments serving to reproduce the same mechanically, the act requires that he shall serve notice of such intention upon the copyright proprietor and must also send a duplicate of such notice to the Copyright Office. ”

“ The consequences of omissions or mistakes with respect to the notice are far less serious under the bill than under the present law, and section 405 (a) makes doubly clear that a copyright owner may guard himself against errors or omissions by others if he makes use of the prescribed notice an express condition of his publishing licenses. ”

“ A new copyright of the same book changed only in title, with a new copyright notice of later date, could scarcely be construed as a new edition and in the absence of the original copyright notice the copyright might thus be abandoned or forfeited and the work be dedicated to the public.
General
titlesGeneral titles cannot in any way be protected. The publishers of the "Bibliographie Universelle," in France, the "Post-Office Directory," in England, and of "Irving's Works," in America, were all defeated in attempts to prevent the use of those titles. ”

“ The term of copyright (which is now up to 56 years and would be even longer under the proposal made in ch. V of this report) is too long for ordinary design protection. And there are other fundamentals of the copyright statute--the provisions on notice, deposit, registration, publication, and liability of innocent distributors of infringing articles, for example--that are not suitable for the entire range of industrial designs. ”

“ In the case of articles in a periodical or parts of a composite work separately copyrighted or registered, the copyright notice should appear on the same page as the title heading.
One notice
sufficientThe proviso (sec. 19) that one notice of copyright in each volume or in each number of a periodical shall suffice is complementary to the provision (sec. 3) by which a copyright protects all the copyrightable component parts of the work copyrighted, and gives to the proprietor of a composite work or periodical all the rights he would have if each part were individually copyrighted. ”

“ Advocates of eliminating our notice provision argue that, as a matter of principle, all authors are entitled to have copyright in all their works without any requirement that they assert their desire for copyright protection. They urge that it is unjust to deprive an author of copyright because of his failure to comply with a technical notice requirement. ”

“ Whenever,43 within the period of this ad interim publication, an authorized edition of the book is published within the United States in accordance with the manufacturing provisions specified in the American copyright law, and when the provisions of the American law as to deposit of copies, registration, filing of affidavit, and the printing of the copyright notice have been duly complied with, the protection is then extended over the full term.
ASSIGNMENT OF COPYRIGHT
A copyright may be assigned, granted, or mortgaged by an instrument in writing signed by the proprietor of the copyright. ”

“ And respondents rightly say 'It is no longer necessary to deposit anything to secure a copyright of a published work, but only to publish with the notice of copyright.'
Section 10 declares-
'That such person may obtain registration of his claim to copyright by complying with the provisions of this Act (title) , including the deposit of copies, and upon such compliance the register of copyrights shall issue to him the certificate provided for in section 55 of this Act (title) .' 17 U.S.C.A. § 10. ”

“ We do not think the statute can be given such a construction, and it is to be remembered that this is purely a question of statutory construction. There is no claim in this case of contract limitation, nor license agreement controlling the subsequent sales of the book. In our view the copyright statutes, while protecting the owner of the copyright in his right to multiply and sell his production, do not create the right to impose by notice, such as is disclosed in this case, a limitation at which the book shall be sold at retail by future purchasers, with whom there is no privity of contract. ”

“ In this context, we have considered the question whether statements appearing near the copyright notice that limit the rights that the copyright claimant is asserting should be required to be reflected in the application and referred to in the Catalog of Copy­right Entries. Examples of such statements would be those that permit certain uses of the work, or, as in the cases under the Office of Education regulation, limit the duration of the copyright claim.The following policy has been formulated:
1. ”

“ The provision also prohibits the compulsory licensee from claiming an independent copyright in his arrangement as a “derivative work” without the express consent of the copyright owner.
Procedure for obtaining compulsory license
Section 115 (b) (1) requires anyone who wishes to take advantage of the compulsory licensing provisions to serve a “notice of intention to obtain a compulsory license,” which is much like the “notice of intention to use” required by the present law. ”

“ The extent and nature of the infringement of copyright; and (b)
the amount which could be payable to the owner in respect of the exercise of copyright by some other person.
[Sub-s. (1B) inserted by s. 21 (b) of Act No. 125 of 1992.]
(1C) If a plaintiff intends to exercise the option contemplated in subsection (1A) , he shall give notice in writing to the exclusive licensee or sub-licensee of the copyright concerned of such intention.
[Sub-s. (1C) inserted by s. 21 (b) of Act No. 125 of 1992.] ”

“ There are, as I say, now twelve large concerns, which are competitors. I appear here in behalf of the stereoscopic view manufacturers, who approve of this bill, except one provision, and that is the provision as to the copyright fee.
Mr. Currier. What section is that, Mr. Remich?
Mr. Remich. That is section 60. You will notice that under the old law the fee for copyrighting was 50 cents. The fee is now made a dollar, which advances that expense upon our industry 100 per cent. ”

“ By nature a notice of use is an entirely different type of legal instrument from an application for original or renewal registration. It is generally recorded without any effort on the part of the Copyright office to check the facts it states, and the cataloger should ordinarily not refer a notice of use even if he recognizes or discovers an error in the information included in it. ”

“ Where, because of the size or physical characteristics of the material in which the work is reproduced in copies, it is impossible or extremely impractical to affix a notice to the copies directly or by means of a durable label, a notice is acceptable if it appears on a tag that is of durable material, so as to withstand normal use, and that is attached to the copy with sufficient durability that it will remain with the copy while it is passing through its normal channels of commerce. ”

“ Identification of subject of document. Recordation of a document gives all persons constructive notice of the facts stated in the recorded document, but only if both of the following two conditions are met:
1)
The document, or material attached to it, speci­fically identifies the work to which it pertains so that, after the document is indexed by the Copy­right Office, it would be revealed by a reasonable search under the title or registration number of the work: and
2)
Registration has been made for the work. See 17 U.S.C. 205 (c) . ”