I did not intend to say more than a word, but the suggestions made by the last speaker, Mr. Pettit, are of so vicious a character--not intentionally so, but they show precisely how a good bill can be made bad--that I am going to extend my remarks for the five or ten minutes required to point out why they should not be regarded at all.
For instance, take section 3. Our friend wants to alter that, and it is absolutely unalterable if justice and common sense are to prevail. All that section says is that the copyright shall extend to all the copyrightable component parts of the work copyrighted, any and all reproductions or copies thereof, in whatever form, style, or size, and all matter reproduced therein in which copyright is already subsisting.
If there is no copyright subsisting to keep a man from singing my song through a phonograph, there is no harm done. If it is subsisting, he must pay the penalty, and the courts will ultimately determine that. The question is now before the courts. It seems to me strange that any court should hesitate to say that a man who not only copies my notation, but who actually reproduces the music, the sound, should not be required to pay me for that privilege. If a man engraves my music and sells it by the sheet, he is a counterfeiter, and I can get money from him and punish him, but if he does more than that--if he completes that counterfeit to the extent of the reproduction of the actual sound that the composer had in his brain when he put it there--they say he has not imitated. That question is before the courts. Do not touch it. Do not touch it. This new law makes it certain for the future, but do not endeavor to touch the past. Let the courts decide what the present law is.
I say that the present law will protect these gentlemen from that piracy--because it is the ultimate form of piracy. It goes further than the reproduction of the composer's music sheet. It reproduces the sound. So that they have taken everything from the music man when they reproduce it on the disk. Therefore I say leave this provision in the bill: "And all matter reproduced therein in which copyright is already subsisting." Do not touch it.
In section 18 my friend (Mr. Pettit) wants to have the disks copyrighted. Mr. Bonynge put his finger right on the point of that proposition, and perhaps it is unwise for me to say anything further. That is a patentable device, and it has been patented, and there is nothing original on that disk--nothing original to the company that makes that disk. The company has borrowed it or bought it or stolen it from somebody else, and they want to copyright that. For heaven's sake, let the copyright stop somewhere.