provisions as to registration, an author publishing a work in Prussia would be entitled to the same rights in England as an Englishman. Public representation or performance was put upon the same footing as copyright. The example thus given was followed by all the other States which have since been consolidated in the German Empire; France followed suit in 1851; the Hanse Towns and Belgium were not far behind, and Spain and Sardinia concluded the list, the date of the treaty with the latter country being as recent as the year 1860. With characteristic sagacity the United States of America kept aloof from the literary federation formed by these Conventions, and have reaped a rich harvest by their judicious abstention. It will be hereafter seen what large benefits have accrued to the American publishers by playing into the hands of Canada, and practically nullifying the provisions of the English International Copyright Acts as regards that dependency of Great Britain. Many inconveniences have both theoretically and practically resulted from the relations created between this country and the other federated countries; there was no uniformity in the terms of the treaties, which varied in some material respects, notably in the matter of registration. For instance, in the case of the French Convention of 1851, registration in England within three months after the first publication of a work in France was a condition precedent to the existence of British copyright; and vice versâ the smallest deviation from the registration forms was held to invalidate the entry in the register; enormous sums have, owing to an omission by some ministerial agent to fulfil a minute technicality, been lost to men of genius who have been compelled to stand by and see their works pass, as it was then thought irrevocably, into the public domain. It is notorious that such was the case with reference to Gounod's opera of Faust. The alleged necessity for some retroactive clauses to repair these evils, as well as the advantages which would obviously result from consolidating in one the treaties existing between the federated countries, were duly taken into consideration, with the result that a scheme was formed for confederating those countries with the addition of some others into one whole for the purposes of international copyright. This was accomplished in the year 1886 by a combination of the States which had formerly entered into treaties with Great Britain, with the addition of Haiti, Switzerland, and Tunis. The actual machinery is described in the body of this work; in popular language the general effect of the Union is (A) To protect unpublished works of any subject of any State a party to the Union. (B) To protect works by an author of any nationality, if first published in any one of the federated States. Works published outside the federated States are unprotected, whatever the nationality of the author. The rights conferred are in each country those which that country allows to its own subjects. Thus for almost all purposes of copyright the federated countries are converted into one large domain, of which the inhabitants may sue one another, and be sued, without distinction of nationality. The exceptions to this character of literary kinship are to be found in that clause of the Convention which regulates the term of copyright, and the formalities necessary for entitling an author to its benefits. The period is not to be the same whether the work to be protected was first published in, for instance, Italy or England, but will vary according to locality, and the registration formalities are in like manner distributive and not homogeneous. The clauses dealing with the retrospective effect of the Convention, combined with an Act of Parliament which was passed to facilitate the great international change, have possibly sown the seed for considerable litigation. 49 & 50 Vict., c. 33. The document embodying the Convention is, however, in most respects framed with such clearness as to command the admiration of all lawyers, and the welcome of all disinterested ones. CHAPTER I. DRAMATIC COPYRIGHT. General Remarks-The Nature, Extent, and Duration of Dramatic Copyright-Who is an Author?-How Copyright is Transferred-What is a Dramatic Composition?--What is a Place of Dramatic Entertainment? -Infringement-What is Consent?-Who is an Offender within the Dramatic Copyright Act?-Nature of the Remedy for Infringement -Limitation of Action. GENERAL REMARKS. " THE author or owner of any literary composition or work of art has, while he keeps it unpublished, an absolute right to it at common law, and has the same remedies for wrongful appropriation and user as in the case of other chattels. Jeffreys v. 4 H.L.Č. 846. Prince But directly he publishes, this common law right to exclude other persons is lost; and such rights as he then possesses are the express creations of statute. Unless, therefore, he conforms to the various statutory conditions, he has no such rights, or at least he has no means of enforcing them. Our considerations being limited to rights in dramatic and musical compositions, we may proceed at once to discuss the two statutes by virtue of which such rights are created, and may be enforced; considering in separate paragraphs the points which the various sections raise. NATURE, EXTENT, AND DURATION OF THE RIGHT. In section 1 of the Dramatic Copyright Act, it is enacted that "the author of any unprinted and unpublished dramatic piece, or the assignee of such author, shall have the sole liberty of representing or causing 3 & 4 Wm. IV.,c.15, s. 1. to be represented at any place or places of dramatic entertainment whatsoever in any part of the British Dominions any such production as aforesaid, and shall be taken to be the proprietor thereof; and that the author of any such production printed and published within ten years before the passing of the Act, by the author thereof or his assignee, or which shall hereafter be so printed and published, or the assignee of such author, shall respectively until the end of twenty-eight years from the day of such first publication of the same, and also if the author or authors or survivor of the authors shall be living at the end of that period during the residue of his natural life, have as his own property the sole liberty of representing or causing to be represented the same at any such place of dramatic entertainment as aforesaid, and shall be taken to be the proprietor thereof.” PerNorth,J., 2. Boosey, Prior to this enactment, "the author of a dramatic (and musical) composition acquired under other statutes a copyright in his work only so far that he could prevent other persons from multiplying in Chappell' copies of it" that is to say, he had copyright in his composition considered as a "book," but he had no right to control the representation. This right of controlling the representation is created by the section above quoted, and it marks an important epoch in the history of dramatic literature. 3 & 4 Wm. IV.,c.15,s.1. It will be observed that a difference is made be In the case tween unpublished and published works. of the former the duration of the right is not defined, while in the latter it is limited to twenty-eight years from the day of first publication, or for the natural life of the author or his assignee, whichever period be the longer. The Copyright Amendment Act professes 5 & 6 Vict., to "extend" the duration of these performing c. 45, s. 4. rights. This it does in terms in the case of printed and |