The results of this act have not proved wholly satisfactory. As far as it concerned authors whose books originated in a language other than English. the act has produced no real benefit. The authors of France, Germany. and Italy— States which are in direct intellectual relations with the United States, and whose governments have accorded to American writers the same copyright protection as it secured for their own authors—secure copyright in form, but not in fact. The difficulty of inducing American pub lishers to make investments in American editions of Continental hooks is not obviated because of the fact that the American law does not place the publishers in a position to protect themselves against unauthorized competing editions. Since the copyright secured for a translation of a book not copyrighted in this country in the original text would cover only the particular version, a piratical competitor might produce, in case the work should prove a success, another version reaping the advantage of the literary judgment and of the advertising contributed by the original and authorized publisher. As a result, the pro duction of American editions of Continental works has, since the act of 1891, been incon siderable. Foreign authors secured but trifling returns from American readers. for the simple fact that they secured very few readers. and American readers failed to obtain the advantage of a knowledge of current Continental literature. the reading of which would have widened their general cultivation and have helped to lessen in ternational prejudice. The law has thus deprived American publishers, and all who have a business interest with these publishers in the trade of book-manufacturing, of the opportunity of mak ing legitimate profit from the production of American editions of the works of Continental au thors. The law has also proved defective in the provisions relating to the protection of works of art, provisions which were framed some time in advance of the development of important meth ods of art production, and in its failure to extend the term of copyright with a view to securing for the producers of intellectual property the con trol for their productions during their own life time, and of preserving for their heirs the enjos' meat of the results of these productions dining a reasonable term after the death of the pro ducer. The United States should not have heen
satisfied with according to literary producers a smaller term of protection than is considered advisable by any other civilized State excepting Greece.
The diverse theories in regard to literary prop erty which, in the shaping of the copyright legis lation of the world, have come into discussion may he briefly summarized as follows: First. property in au intellectual conception or creation is analogous to property in a material creation, and implies as comprehensive and unlimited a control for the production as that conceded by the community to other classes of productions: Second, intellectual property depends upon an individual agreement or convention, to which each person enjoying the use of a copy of a literary or artistic production makes himself a party; third, property in an intellectual pro duction depends upon the natural or personal rights of the author, who, through unauthorized appropriations. may suffer an injury or tort; fourth, property in an intellectual production is the creation of statute, and is subject to limits depending not upon the natural rights of the producer. but upon the convenience or ad vantage of the community.
Of these several theories or conceptions, it is the fourth which represents in substance the sur vival of discussions of two centuries, and which has formed the basis of the copyright legislation of both Europe and America.
For further particulars as to the copyright legislation now in force in the United States and elsewhere, see the title COPYRIOHT, and consult the authorities there referred to.