I am going to leave that without any argument, because it seems to me the fact itself is persuasive and that it must impress this committee with the substantial value of this bill that has been presented.
There is one thing which the committee will naturally scrutinize with great attention, and that is every provision of this bill which in any respect seems to extend the field of copyright as Congress has previously bounded it; that is to say, which gives copyright upon some new article, or extends the term of copyright, or gives copyright to people who did not formerly possess it, or which in any degree limits the right of the public as against the copyright owner. The bill, I think, makes no very large incursion into that region, but it is that region which, I am sure, this committee will principally wish to examine. With your permission, I shall briefly speak of those things which occur to me as to such extensions.
First of all, the bill does extend the privilege of copyright to preventing the reproduction of musical sound or spoken words by machinery. That was spoken of before the committee yesterday. All that I can say about it is that this body whom I represent, although some of them have special interests in it (and they wish to be heard on it hereafter), in general look upon the matter as the circuit court of the United States in the second circuit looked upon it in their last decision on the subject, as being a matter germane to the copyright law, relating to the same kind of rights that Congress has hitherto protected, and that they see no reason why such rights should not hereafter be properly protected; and they respectfully refer the committee, so far as their suggestion goes, to the special information and advice of those on both sides of the question who have the greatest interest in it and the greatest capacity to inform the committee in regard to it.
The CHAIRMAN. Can you give the citation of the decision that you have mentioned?
Mr. OLIN. I can hand it to you. A printed copy of the decision was handed to me yesterday. It has not yet been reported.
Mr. CHANEY. That was the decision that was distributed yesterday?
The CHAIRMAN. Unless there is objection on the part of the committee, we will have this decision put in the record.