ARGUMENTS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON PATENTS
OF THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ON
H. R. 11943,

TO AMEND TITLE 60, CHAPTER 3, OF THE REVISED
STATUTES OF THE UNITED STATES
RELATING TO COPYRIGHTS.

MAY 2, 1906.

COMMITTEE ON PATENTS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

FIFTY-NINTH CONGRESS.

WASHINGTON:
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE.
1906.

ARGUMENT (CONTINUED) ON H. R. 11943, TO AMEND TITLE 60, CHAPTER 3, OF REVISED STATUTES OF THE UNITED STATES, RELATING TO COPYRIGHTS.

Committee on Patents,

House of Representatives,

Washington, D.C., May 3, 1906.

The committee met at 11 o'clock a.m., Hon. Frank D. Currier (chairman) in the chair.

The Chairman. I have received a telegram regarding the bill now before the committee from John Philip Sousa, which reads as follows:

STATEMENT OF MR. A. R. SERVEN, ATTORNEY FOR THE
MUSIC PUBLISHERS' ASSOCIATION—Continued.

Mr. Serven. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, during the last hundred years and more the inventors of the country have been liberally dealt with by the lawmakers, and the result is to-day no country in the world stands higher in everything in the line of mechanical and industrial development than the United States does, and I think you gentlemen who have this matter of patents in charge may justly take pride in yourselves that your committee in the past has done such magnificent work for the wealth, the prosperity, and the reputation, and the ability of the United States at home and abroad. It is conceded, I think, to-day all over the world that the American inventor is the most industrious, the most ingenious, and is the most valuable part of the real wealth of the United States, and that is so because from the very start the laws have been most liberal to protect the American inventor for every bit of the right of property which he could possibly have in anything that is the creation of his brain and his genius.

Now, unfortunately, as I remarked yesterday, the record is not just that way in regard to the musical inventors—if I may use that term—of the United States, and that, and that alone, is the reason why we have to-day almost no names of composers that have a world-wide reputation. Perhaps the sender of the telegram we have just heard read is as well known in other countries as any composer we have; possibly his music has been heard by more people than the music of any other composer of the United States; and yet the musical critics all over the world say America has no national music because she has no national composers. It is true that there is not in existence to-day, perhaps, a single ambitious musical drama that can claim popularity and reputation that may be expected to be handed down as one of the musical classics that had as its composer a citizen of the United States. I am informed by these musical gentlemen that probably the greatest composer we ever had was compelled, in order to surround himself with the necessities which he required to prosecute his musical work, to leave the United States and take up his residence in Europe, where he continued to live, I believe, to his death. I think that Mr. Furness, who is much better informed than I—and possibly in the opinion of the Musical Publishers' Association, anyway, he is the one man of all those in the United States who knows most about these things—would like to tell you something about this composer this morning, because it is a unique part of the national history, and not by any means a creditable one.

Mr. Webb. Who was it?

Mr. Furness. McDowell.

Mr. Serven. The reason that the composer has not gone hand in hand with the literary man and with the inventor, who produce their works from the brain, is because thus far our country has not been so ready to concede to them the right of absolute use and control of their works. The inventor has the right to say just who shall produce his invention, just what it shall be sold for, if he wants to limit it as to that, and just who shall buy it, even, if he wants to go as far as that.

Mr. Dresser. I doubt that.

The Chairman. An idea has just occurred to me. I understood you to say yesterday that this movement to enforce the law arose from the fact that men like Mr. Tams had gone into the renting or lending of musical works as a business.

Mr. Furness. I would like to treat of that later.

The Chairman. And that that was the feature which you wished to reach. Suppose this committee should amend this law so as to provide that the renting or lending of these books should be confined to the societies, as we indicated yesterday, that give charitable performances without profit, so that they could only borrow from other similar societies.

Mr. Furness. Mr. Chairman, if you will allow me, I would like to speak of that a little later.

The Chairman. That would entirely wipe out the evil which you suggested to the committee yesterday.

Mr. Furness. I doubt whether there is any great number of those people in the United States. You take choirs and churches. Of course churches are not in commercial line of business; they have no means of earning money except by general subscription by members or sale of the seats, and there are a very few cases where the Sunday school wishes to give an entertainment for charity. Those compositions are very inexpensive.

Mr.