The CHAIRMAN. For whom do you appear, Mr. Ogilvie?
Mr. OGILVIE. For myself as a publisher and for several other Chicago publishers, none of whom were represented at or invited to the conferences of which this hill is the result.
Mr. CHANEY. Had you no notice that there was going to be a conference?
Mr. OGILVIE. The first information that I had that there was a conference was from a gentleman representing Lyon & Healy, of Chicago, in the Manhattan Hotel in New York, last November. That was the first intimation I had that there had been a conference. I knew that there were likely to be some, but I had no notice of their dates.
Mr. CHANEY. We wanted you as well as everybody else.
Mr. OGILVIE. I knew nothing about it. I may say, also, that the first draft of this bill that I have seen was received in my office in Chicago Saturday morning last.
Again, on page 18 of the bill, section 25:
That any person who willfully and for profit shall infringe any copyright secured by this act, or who shall knowingly or willfully aid or abet such infringement or in any wise knowingly and willfully take part in any such infringement shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment for not exceeding one year or by a fine, etc.
It seems to me a little out of order for the gentlemen who are sponsors for this bill to make it possible for them to get a copyright on a book, and if they are not caught in making a false affidavit in securing it, that a man shall go to the penitentiary for a year for pirating that particular book. It will be rather difficult for one to prove, after a number of years, that a publisher who has made an affidavit to secure a copyright to which he really was not entitled had committed perjury in connection with the securing of that copyright; but the question as to one's piracy of the book is open and "he that runs may read." It seems to me that there is a punishment there that they have applied to the wrong crime. If the man who makes a false affidavit were to go to the penitentiary for the year, I think it would protect the interests that desire protection in this country, in the form of labor, in the matter of setting up and manufacturing books wholly within the limits of the United States.