The law of motion pictures (1918)

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510 THE LAW OF MOTION PICTURES The United States Supreme Court held that in order to constitute an abandonment of common-law rights there must be a publication of the work in the sense that publication has been established by the common law, to wit: reproduction of the work in copies for sale. That since the play had not been printed and published no publication had taken place ; that the English Parliament could at its pleasure define publication and impose such other restrictions upon the common-law rights of the author as it deemed fit, but that such modifications could have no extraterritorial effect, and that the American courts were not bound to accept such changes in the common law. In other words, that while such representation in England amounted to a publication, it did not amount to publication so far as this country was concerned. In the words of the court: “When Section 20 of the Act of 5 and 6 Viet. C. 45 provided that the first public performance of a play should be deemed equivalent in the construction of that act, to the first publication of a book, it simply defined its meaning with respect to the rights which the statutes conferred. The deprivation of the common-law right by force of the statute, was plainly limited by the territorial bounds within which the operation of the statute was confined.” Section 139. — Notice of copyright. The statute does not provide for any notice of copyright in the case of works copyrighted as unpublished works. Hence no notice of copyright is required on motion pictures which are copyrighted as unpublished works.