January 29.
Tae question of copyright has exorcised the minds of literary men and composers for many years, and the complexity of the law in England has increased greatly in recent times owing to the wider extension that has been given to the meaning of copyright and the increased scope for the operation of those who habitually profit by other persons' brains. In 1908 an International Conference of the Union for the protection of literary and artist tic workers was held in Berlin. Fifteen countries participated in each being animate to protect in as heir litera eat artistic work. It'
ible the rights of authors for
was resolved to conclude a conven-' tion for the purpose of revising the Convention of Berne of September 9, 1886, and important articles of agreement wore drawn up. Last year the President of the English Board of Trade appointed " Committee to consider how far the law of the United Kingdom should be altered so as to give effect to the revised Convention, and the report of that Committes was issued recently, The Committee, of which Lord Gorell was President, experienced great difficulty in its work owing to the general complexity and confusion of the English law of copyright. This law is embodied in a series of statutes dating back to the year 1738, It is wholly destitute of any arrangement,. is notoriously incomplete and often obscure, and the Committee found that the law was so fill-expressed that long study was often necessary in order to ascertain the real meaning of it. The basis of our modern law on the subject is the Copyright Act of 1842, wherein all literary publications are referred to as books," thus affording little protection for newspapers, periodicals and many other forms of printed matter. England has not been alone in her troubles with regard to copyright, and now that good books published in any country circulate freely all over the world, either boribrerad original language or translated, in Grder to. protect effectively the rights of authors it is necessary to form a strong union of the various countries principally concerned. Tt would be desirable that the remedies to be conferred upon suther or their assigns against persons infring= ing their rights should be reduced to some uniform state, for instance with regard to damages, penalties
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.