Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/742

730 FEPEBAL EEPOBTEB. �than wiiàt anses from the faot of thie delivery to the state. Whether they-wëre distributed by the state, or retained until after the proper certificate was entered in the clerk's office of the district court, dbes not appear. It is argued that the delivery to the state constituted per se a publication within the meaning of the statute; and, as the certificate was filed after the delivery to the state, there was no eopyi'ight to the volume for that reason. These were copies for the use of the state, and subjeet to distribution under the provisions of law. Sections 23, 24, c 29, Eet, St. 1845. Can we assume, in the absence of any evidence upon the subjeet, that a distri- butioii was made? Mere printing of a book is not necessarily publication, and I am inclined to think it was incumbent upon the defendants to show something more than a mere delivery of the copi 3S to the state. �The title-page of volume 34, together with the printed vol- ume itself, seems to have been filed in the clerk's office of the district court on the twenty-third of October, 1866, and it is claimed that this does not show that a proper certificate was filed in the clerk's office, as required by the statute, before publication. It will be observed that the statute does not specify how long before publication the certificate should be filed. Here both acts seem to have occurred on the same day, and the presumption, I think, is, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, that the filing of the certificate of title preceded the deposit of the volume in the clerk's office. �The title-page of volume 35 was deposited with the clerk of the district court in January, 1867, and the note printed in the volume states that it was "entered àccording to act of congress in the year 1866." There is no doubt this is a mis- take in the imprint of the entry, as it should have been 1867, instead of 1866. The statute does not require that the note of entry ehould indicate the day or the month, but only the year; and if it be true that this mistake is fatal, then, of course, as to that volume the copyright is lost. �But I do not feel inclined to give so rigid a construction to the statute. The case of Baker v. Taylor, 2 Blatohf . 82, is cited as being conclu sive against the validity of the copyright in ����