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THE LAW OF MOTION PICTURES
placed on sale, sold or publicly distributed by the proprietor of the copyright or under his authority.
Clearly, when the motion picture is offered for sale outright, the date when it is first so offered is the date of publication.29
The usual method of procedure, however, is for the producing company to place a number of the positive prints of the film in exchanges, where they are rented to exhibitors at fixed compensation. Title in the prints always remains in the producer or distributor. Any exhibitor, upon payment of the stipulated license fee is at liberty to rent the film.
In our opinion the offer of the prints by the exchanges to the exhibitors constitutes a publication within the meaning of the act.
The date of the first publication is the first day upon which exhibitors may obtain the prints, which is ordinarily called in the trade the release date.
There is good authority to sustain this position. In cases where books containing the ratings of merchants were leased for a stated term to any and all persons who accepted them at the proprietor’s terms, and where title
29 Gottsberger v. Aldine (1887), 33 Fed. (C. C.) 381. mere plaintiff had sold several copies of his work before obtaining copyright, this was a publication, and he could not restrain defendants from infringing.
Stern v. Jerome H. Remick (1910), 175 Fed. (C. C.) 282.
The sale of a single copy of the song was held sufficient to constitute a publication.
See also: Palmer v. DeWitt (1872), 47 N. Y. 532; Tompkins v. Halleck (1882), 133 Mass. 32; Carter v. Bailey (1874), 64 Me. 461.