taken on account of any infringement. A copyright can be
registered at any time, even after an infringement, but the owner
of the copyright cannot recover for any infringement before
registration. The act provides for both penalties and damages
in the following cases:—(1) For infringing copyright in the
ordinary way by issuing unlawful copies. (2) For fraudulently
signing or affixing a fraudulent signature to a work of art. (3)
For fraudulently dealing with a work so signed. (4) For fraudulently
putting forth a copy of a work of art, whether there be
copyright in it or no, as the original work of the artist. (5) For
altering, adding to, or taking away from a work during the
lifetime of the author if it is signed, and putting it forth as the
unaltered work of the author. (6) For importing pirated works.
The incongruities of this act were so apparent that its promoters desired to stop it, feeling that it would be better to have no bill at all than one which conferred so little upon the people it was intended to benefit; but Lord Westbury, the lord chancellor, who had charge of the bill in the House of Lords, advised them to let it go through with all its imperfections, that they might get the right of the painter to protection recognized. This advice was followed, and the bill had no sooner become law than a fresh effort was started to have it amended. Year by year the agitation went on, with the exception only of a period when Irish affairs took up all the attention of parliament, and domestic legislation was rendered impossible. But in 1898 the Copyright Association of Great Britain promoted a bill, which was introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Herschell. It was a measure designed to deal with all forms of copyright—literary, musical, dramatic and artistic—and was remitted by the House of Lords for consideration to a committee, which, having sat for three sessions, decided not to proceed with Lord Herschell’s measure, but to treat literature and art in separate bills. It had under its consideration an artistic bill, drafted for and presented by the Royal Academy, and a literary bill and an artistic bill drafted by the committee itself. The main proposals in the latter were to give copyright to the author of any artistic work or photograph for a period of life and thirty years, unless the work be commissioned, in which case the copyright was to be the property of the employer, except in the case of sculpture intended to be placed in a street or public place. The bill provided summary remedies for dealing with pirated works. It omitted altogether any reference to registration, and it provided for international copyright.
22. To sum up the position of artistic copyright in 1909, we find five British acts, three dealing with engraving, one with sculpture, and one with painting, drawing and photography, and between them very little relation. We have three terms of duration of copyright—28 years for engraving, 14 for sculpture, with a second 14 if the artist be alive at the end of the first, life and 7 years for painting, drawing or photography. There are two different relations of the artist to his copyright. The sculptor’s right to sell his work and retain his copyright has never been questioned so long as he signs and dates it. The painter’s copyright is made to depend upon the signing of a document by the purchaser of his work. The engraver and the sculptor are not required to register; but the author’s name, and the date of putting forth or publishing, must appear on his work. The painter cannot protect his copyright without registration, but this registration as it is now required is merely a pitfall for the unwary. Designed to give the public information as to the ownership and duration of copyrights, the uncertainty of its operation results in the prevention of information on these very points.
The Berlin Convention of 1908 led to the appointment of a British committee to deal with its recommendations, and their report in 1909 foreshadowed important changes in the law both of literary and of artistic copyright, whenever Parliament should give its attention seriously to the subject.
Difficult and complicated as is the whole subject of artistic copyright, it is perhaps not to be wondered at that ignorance of the law on the subject is very widespread, even amongst those who are most interested in its action.Practical difficulties. One of the commonest beliefs amongst artists is, that all they have to do to secure copyright is to register a picture at Stationers’ Hall; but the authorities at Stationers’ Hall ask no questions, and simply enter any particulars submitted to them on their printed form. Some artists make a practice, when they send a picture away to exhibition, to fill up one of these forms, reserving the copyright by their entry to themselves, in the belief that, if accompanied by the fee required by the Hall, its entry will reserve the copyright to them, oblivious of the fact that the only thing which can reserve the copyright to them is the possession of a document assigning the copyright to them by the purchaser of the picture. Another useless method of attempting to reserve artists’ copyrights is that adopted by the promoters of public exhibitions, with whom it is an almost constant practice to print on some portion of the catalogue of the exhibition a statement that “copyrights of all pictures are reserved,” the impression apparently prevailing that a notice of this kind effectively reserves the copyright for the artist while selling his picture from the walls. It, of course, does no such thing, and the copyright of any picture sold in these circumstances, without the necessary document from the purchaser, must be lost to the artist, and pass irrevocably into the public domain.
In a work of art the work itself and the copyright are two totally distinct properties, and may be held by different persons. The conditions differ materially from those of a work of literature, in which as a rule there is no value apart from publication. There is a value in a work of art for its private enjoyment quite apart from its commercial value in the form of reproductions; but when the two properties exist in different hands, the person holding the copyright has no power to force the owner of the work of art to give him access to it for purposes of reproduction; this can only be effected by private arrangement. It has been argued that, as the two properties are so distinct, the owner of the copyright ought to have the right of access to the picture for the purpose of exercising his right to reproduce it. But it is easy to see that it would destroy the value of art property if proprietors knew that at any moment they might be forced to surrender their work for the purpose of reproduction, though for a time only.
There is often a strong sympathy between the artist and the person who buys his picture, and it is not at all unusual, when application is made to the owner of the picture for access to it, for him to submit the question of reproduction to the artist. Although the latter may really have no right in it, it is felt, as a practical matter, that he is largely interested in the character of the reproduction it is proposed to make. Hence the courtesy which is usually extended to him.
Owing also to the increased facilities of reproduction, the practice has become very common of splitting up copyrights and granting licences in what may be described as very minute forms. It would, of course, be impossible for a publisher to pay an artist the sum at which he values his entire copyright, simply that he might reproduce his picture in the form of a black-and-white block in a magazine, and it has consequently become quite common for the artist to grant a licence for any and every particular form of reproduction as it may be required, so that he may grant the right of reproduction in one particular form in one particular publication, and even for a particular period of time, reserving to himself thus the right to grant similar licences to other publishers. This is apparently not to the injury of the artist; it is probably to his advantage, and it certainly promotes business.
23. The great obstacle in the way of securing a really good
Artistic Bill has been the introduction into it of photography.
It was by a sort of accident that the photographer was
given the same privileges as the painter in the bill ofPhoto-
graphs.
1862. The promoters of the bill thought that the
photographer would be protected by the Engraving Acts which
covered prints; but since the photographers feared that, as
their prints were of a different character from the prints from a
plate, the Engraving Acts might not protect them, it was at the
last moment decided to put photography into the Art Bill. The
result of this was that the painter lost his chance of copyright on
all works executed on commission. Legislators feared that if
photographers held copyright in all their works the public would
have no protection from the annoyance of seeing the photographs
of their wives and daughters exhibited and sold in shop windows
by the side of “professional beauties” and other people, and
