Moving Picture World (Jan-Mar 1914)

THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 1063 INDEX EXHmiTORS eUIDB J. P. Chalmers, Founder. Published Weekly by the Chalmers publishing Company 17 MADISON AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY. (Telephone, 3510 Madison Square.) I. P. Chalmers, Sr President E. J. Chalmers Secretary and Treasurer John WyUe Vice-President and General Manager The office of the company is the address of the officers. Western Office — 169 West Washington Street (Post Building), (Zhicago, 111. Telephone, Main 3145. SUBSCRIPTION RATES. United States, Mexico, Hawaii, Porto Rico and Philippine Islands $3-0O per year Canada 3.50 per year Foreign Countries ( Postpaid) 4.00 a year ADVERTISING RATES. Classified Advertising — no display — three cents per word ; minimum charge, 50c. Display Advertising Rates made known on application. NOTE. — Address all correspondence, remittances and subscriptions to Moving Picture World, P. O. Box 226, Madison Square Station, New York, and not to individuals. {The index for this issue zuill be found on page 1174.) Entered at the General Post Office, New York City, as Second Class Matter. Saturday, February 28, 1914. CHANGE OF WESTERN OFFICES. The Chicago offices of the Moving Picture World wrill be moved about March 4th from 167 West Washington Street to 9x7-9x9 Schiller Building. Facts and Comments A MOST important decision affecting the copyright in relation to motion pictures has just been handed down by Judge Hand, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. A question arose as to the right of an author to make separate sales of the rights to dramatize and the rights to film a story. Under the well-known decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of the Kalem Company against Harper Brothers, it was held that the production of a copyrighted book in motion pictures was an infringement of the dramatic rights of the book. Judge Hand now declares that since the adoption of the amendments to the copyright law in 1912 the dramatic rights do not include the filming rights. The Court calls attention to the new method of procedure to be followed since the adoption of the amendment in the registration of moving picture plays. It goes on to say "that it is one thing to secure the copyright upon a drama proper and another to secure it on a moving picture play." An author, in the court's opinion, might copyright his play and "he would still not have copyrighted or published his moving pic ture rights." Further defining the rights of authors, the judge holds that "he (the author) could get a separate copyright upon his film. Of course, he could sell his statutory or common-law copyright of the play and keep the moving picture copyright, or he could sell each." A resume of the decision will be found in another part of the paper. Owing to the confusion which has heretofore existed on the subject of the respective rights of the author and the dramatizer, producers of motion pictures based upon popular books have been compelled to procure the consent of both the author of the book and of the owner of the dramatic rights in order to avoid all possibility of litigation. * * * WITH no desire to gloat, and solely for the purpose of a kind warning to those who may be tempted, we record the fact that the exhibition of the nastiest of the "white-slave" films has been a persistent failure from a financial point of view. The drama as well as the film have fallen flat and have caused their owners and promoters many an uneasy moment. The lesson of this goes much beyond the present issue. It demonstrates that there is after all little profit in ministering to a craze, either on the stage or on the screen. Fits of hysteria will come and go. Some few men may on occasion be able to capitalize the hysteria while it is at its height, but rarely does it add anything to their reputation even when they are successful. Where the craze or hysteria is due to the sprouting of a germ of indecency or obscenity the man who is identified with an effort at capitalizing it loses even if he makes money. * * * TO those who are inexperienced in legislative matters and methods, the flood of bills now before the New York state legislature affecting motion pictures and theatrical exhibitions might be cause for alarm. We have a bill creating a "theatrical commission" with practically the power of life and death over all amusements within the state; another bill authorizing Sunday performances under certain conditions, and again another measure proposing to stop motion picture exhibitions on the first day of the week, "commonly called Sunday." Most of these bills will never get beyond a report from the committee to which they have been referred, while others will die in one house without ever reaching the other. The one bill worth watching is the proposed prohibition of Sunday exhibitions of motion pictures. * * * IN another part of The Moving Picture World we record the notable news that while we all hoped and wished for the systematic courses of kinematographic instruction, there was one man right here with us who quietly worked on a kinematographic course in zoology and who has now completed such a course from bugs to elephants. Educational kinematography has thus advanced many miles, and it was done so quietly that none of us knew anything about it. The Moving Picture World congratulates Mr. Raymond L. Ditmars on his splendid achievement. w E do not quite understand the complaint of a valued correspondent who writes to tell us that "too many Catholic priests appear in motion pictures and that there are not enough ministers." After seeing something like ten thousand feet of pictures every week and consulting our staff who see them all every week we cannot lay our hands on a single case in which the clergy, irrespective of any denomination, has not been treated with all due respect. Priests and ministers, like lawyers, doctors and indeed all classes of people, are necessary to a true portrayal of life.