Tams yesterday tried to make you believe that some of them cost $2 apiece. That is not true. The short cantatas and little operettas run from $4 a hundred to 35 cents apiece, and in very few cases higher than 40 cents. In regard to the renting, we have made provision for that in the new copyright draft that is being framed, the publisher or author or owner of the copyright, whoever he is, should have the right to make such loan, but that it should not be done through what we term the scalper.

The Chairman. Do you think the publishers would greatly object if the lending of these books was confined to a religious or school society, and the loan was made to a similar society for charitable performances?

Mr. Furness. We have in Massachusetts, in Worcester, a musical society that gives an entertainment each spring, called the May Festival.

Mr. Serven. Do they charge an admission?

Mr. Furness. They charge an admission, and they get the best talent they can procure. They have a few hundred books, and many times they loan them out to other societies for similar entertainments, to societies that are not so poor but what they could afford to buy them. That is one of the great evils that is interfering with the business of the music publishers.

Mr. Gill. Do the singers and musicians give their services free?

Mr. Furness. No; they do not. They are well paid. They have Caruso and Sembrich and others of that class.

Mr. Serven. There may be a single song or instrumental piece which, of course, can be produced on three or four pages and sold separately; but anything other than something like that in the line of a musical composition is simply valuable to the producer of it because of the fact that it is going to be performed, and it is written especially for that purpose, just as the dramatic compositions are written solely for the purpose of performance, and not for the purpose of their literary merit or as a matter of reading. And for that reason the performance of the extended musical composition is exactly the same as the performance of the dramatic composition.

And, to follow the comparison with the patent, in the same way that the manufacture of the patent is to the right that is granted under the patent so is this performance to the right that is granted under the copyright, and the proceeds of the production are directly proportional to the performance of the production. There is, to be sure, a limited amount of private sales to persons who, for instance, find some one little theme in a composition and like to have it in their homes and occasionally sing it in their homes and possibly somewhere else, but I should think it would be safe to say that not less than 90 per cent of all the sales of oratorios or operettas or cantatas—I am speaking both of religious and secular musical works—are either directly or indirectly solely for the purpose of public performance and connected with public performance.

The Chairman. But one of these societies that bought the books for the purpose of giving a performance would only loan it to some society near by.

Mr. Serven. Unless, as they sometimes do, they would send from Worcester to California for something. It is easy to do those things, and they do it, or have done it.

The Chairman. There might be persons in a society in California that had friends belonging to a similar society in Massachusetts, and in such cases there might be some correspondence and exchange, but that would rarely happen, I should say.

Mr. Serven. They are in correspondence all over the country—the different societies. For instance, there is a Cincinnati society that has an annual festival there, and it carries on a correspondence with similar societies throughout the country.

Mr. Webb. Your idea is that nobody but a person who buys a piece of copyright music should have a right to perform it publicly?

Mr. Serven. That is what is doing to-day. The person that buys it has the right of public performance.

Mr. Chaney. Carrying out the analogy with patents, what would you say about the right of a man who buys a patent to dispose of it in any way he pleases?

Mr. Serven. He buys the patent right.

Mr. Chaney. He buys a machine, for instance.

Mr. Serven. The object that is patented under the patent?

Mr. Chaney. Yes; take a reaper or a mower or a trashing machine.

Mr. Serven. In a case of that kind it seems to me that the owner of the patent, if he likes, can do just as he pleases, and as a matter of fact in very many instances they sell the right to manufacture for certain districts——

Mr. Chaney. Exclusive of manufacturing, I mean.

Mr. Serven. I will follow it from the manufacturer. I remember in my own county—my native county—that a certain variety of fence that was patented, in which case rights were sold in every township, not only to manufacture, but also to sell to other residents of that town the use of that particular kind of fence, whether it was manufactured by the fellow who bought the use, or whether it was manufactured by the fellow who had a license for that town, and nobody else who did not get that from the original patent-right owner, or the licensee under him, could build that fence, and I remember that there were several farmers who liked the fence but who didn't like to pay the price, and they attempted to build it, and they were hauled up in the courts, and my remembrance is that it cost them $1,500 or $1,800 altogether to settle for a little strip of fence that was not worth more than $50.

Mr. Dresser. I don't believe a court would ordinarily give such a judgment as that in such a case.

Mr. Chaney. Suppose you limit it as to a machine, without any statement as to his rights further than there is a machine for his use. Now, has he not the right that he can dispose of that machine to anybody he chooses?

Mr. Serven. Undoubtedly, because the law provides expressly that thing now.

Mr. Chaney. Now, then, what difference would there be——

Mr. Serven. The law provides expressly the opposite in regard to the public performance of the musical composition, and under that old principle let the buyer look out! He is supposed to know what the law is.

Mr. Chaney. That being so, ought not a man who buys a musical composition to have the right to do just as he pleases with it, the same as a man who purchases a mowing machine? For instance, I sing some myself. If I buy a piece of music ought I not to have a right to do what I please with it?

Mr. Serven. Certainly, if your contract covers that.

Mr. Chaney. But suppose it does not.

Mr. Serven. There must be an express or implied contract as to what he is buying.

Mr. Chaney. He buys the machine.

Mr. Bonynge. I do not understand that he has not the same right if he buys a piece of music he can do what he wants to with it; but the other question is in regard to the public performance.

Mr. Serven. For profit; yes.

Mr. Chaney. In the case of a musical composition, he buys it for the purpose of public performance.

Mr. Serven. Not necessarily.

Mr. Chaney. For instance, take a