a dramatization. It is not necessary that there should be both speech and action in dramatic performances although dialogue and action usually characterize them." In this case the defendants had caused persons to represent the action in certain scenes of "Ben Hur" and photographed this representation on a moving picture film, which they reproduced for sale to theatoriums, where public exhibitions were given for profit. The court held under the old law that "moving pictures would be a form of expression infringing the author's exclusive right to dramatize his writings and publicly to perform such dramatization." The contrary view was held in the English case of Karno v. Pathé Frères in 1908, where also the Court of Appeal held, in 1909, that not the manufacturer but the exhibitor of such a film would be the responsible party if there were infringement.
Literary
merits not
requisiteThe doctrine that copyright does not depend on literary merit, was strengthened in a dramatic case in Henderson v. Tompkins in 1894, in the U.S. Circuit Court in Massachusetts by Judge Putnam, who held that a paraphrase of "I wonder if dreams come true," from " Ali Baba," constituted an infringement, though the offending piece had slight literary merit.
What is a
dramatico-
musical
compositionAs to what is a musical composition, the term defines itself. But the phrase "dramatico-musical compositions," as used in the American code, bristles with perplexities, not altogether solved by the definitions of the Copyright Office Rules, above cited. It means, of course, music and drama in association, but in this combination the definition of the dramatic side is peculiarly difficult. Whether a dance, ballet or other choregraphic work, with or without music, is included, is a mooted question. In 1892, in Fuller v. Bemis, where the plaintiff sought to protect a skirt dance of which she had filed a description for copyright as a
