Part 31 (1/2)

It is needless to mention to this committee the unprecedented state of prosperity and material progress attained by this country as the direct result of invention. In all arts the work of the inventor will be found at the foundation of the progress and prosperity of the country. The author or composer has to do more with the pleasure or esthetics of life, the inventor with the real necessities, and in the art allied to the fine arts has had to do with placing throughout the United States in the possession of the common people everywhere the means by which the composer as composer can never give them. It is not for a moment intended to detract from the value of the work of the author or composer, for his work is valuable, but its value has certain limitations, and these limitations are defined in the Const.i.tution and acts of Congress heretofore pa.s.sed in pursuance thereof.

The farmer or the workingman in all the small towns of this country, who are possessed of an electrical piano player or an automatic piano player, or a graphophone or a phonograph, which serves to relax the tension of their daily labor and fill their souls with music, is not because of the composer, for he rarely reached them, but it is the direct result of the inventor of the mechanical contrivances with which music may be conveyed. Yet this law attempts to reach out and take away from the inventor the product of his brain and to deliver it over to the composer. So far as the ma.s.s of the people of this country is concerned, the work of the composer is infinitesimal as compared with the work of the inventor, and the inventor is willing that the composer shall have his just rights under the Const.i.tution; that is to say, shall have full protection in his writings, but does protest that a law should not be pa.s.sed which will enable the composer to overstep the field of protection to which he is ent.i.tled under the Const.i.tution and usurp that which the Const.i.tution has particularly provided shall be with the inventor.

Mr. CURRIER. Would you object to paying a reasonable royalty to a musical author or the proprietor of the copyright if all companies would get the right to use that piece of copyrighted music upon the same terms?

Mr. DAVIS. Most a.s.suredly not--no, sir; I would not, provided----

Mr. CURRIER. You would not object to paying a reasonable royalty if that right was given to all upon the same terms?

Mr. DAVIS. Provisionally I would not object, but your proposition is one which mainly interests the manufacturers of my machine, whom I do not represent. As an inventor I approve of the bill as a whole and only seek to strike out therefrom those comparatively few words covering mechanical devices, the insertion of which vitally affects our present vested rights.

Mr. CURRIER. If it could be worked out along the lines suggested, you would not object to that?

Mr. DAVIS. No, sir; no, sir. But, in my opinion, you will never be able to draw a better or more workable line of demarkation between the inventor and composer than that now set up by the Const.i.tution, particularly if you follow the lines of the present bill as regards mechanical devices, in respect to which collusive elements have been at work behind the drafting of the bill. I will give you my word of honor to produce evidence of it.

The CHAIRMAN. Of what character?

Mr. DAVIS. That Mr. Sousa, or rather the majority of composers, have been sold out by their publishers to this monopolistic octopus, the aeolian Co. and lesser satellites, and that contracts exist which antic.i.p.ate and control benefits designed primarily for the composers, with whom us inventors have no direct fight.

Mr. CHANEY. The idea is now, you know, to try to protect these people who produce the music to the public, and all that. They have rights which we are bound to respect, as well as the inventor.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; and I would help you in all reasonable and lawful efforts.

Mr. CHANEY. And the idea now is to try to evolve something that will treat everybody fairly.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. But if the Const.i.tution has led inventors on, given an incentive to them to go ahead and work and devote their funds and lives to developing these industries, which are second to none in the world as young industries, it would be wrong to come in at this stage and either curtail the incentive or subtract from rights already vested in them.

Mr. CURRIER. Yes; but that very clause gives the same incentive and protection to the musical author, does it not, as to the inventor? He is protected on his writings as you are on your discovery?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; there is a line of demarcation set up in the Const.i.tution. I went in to try to get the line of demarcation between an inventor and a composer. I went in, as I thought, intelligently. I have studied the laws right down to the last decision of the 25th ultimo, that of the court of appeal for the second circuit, and all confirm the contention which I have made here that the only incentive held up to the composer is a specific protection for his ”writings,”

not on machines.

The CHAIRMAN. Would you object to Mr. Sousa taking your invention and combining it with his composition and putting it upon the market?

Mr. DAVIS. If there was some fair, equitable way of doing that, no sir, I would not. But unfortunately, we inventors and composers are the ones that are generally imposed on, and naturally I am fearful that any change in the laws as they now exist will prove disadvantageous to both our interests.

Mr. MCGAVIN. If I understand your position correctly, you feel that Mr. Sousa has no more right to require any further compensation from a phonograph company, if it be a phonograph company, for the use of any particular piece of music which has been copyrighted, and of which he has received the benefit, than an inventor of a drum would have a right, after he has been protected by a patent right, to require Mr.

Sousa to pay further for the use of that right. That is your position, is it not?

Mr. DAVIS. Well, you can look at that in two different lights. From the legal standpoint he has no right whatever. From an ethical standpoint there seems to be a sort of remote ethical right. I am not a lawyer, and not used to legal verbiage, and am not sure that I can clearly differentiate between legal and ethical rights.

Mr. CHANEY. Well, this is the ”Const.i.tution between friends,” you know.

Mr. DAVIS. As inventors we proceeded under the laws of the land as they exist.

Mr. MCGAVIN. That is just what I say.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Sousa, through his publishers, has tried in the various courts to have the word ”writing” broadened, but he has failed to do so, and he now comes to you to do it. In no copyright act or law has there ever been introduced before--you will not find it anywhere--one word or clause or phrase, before this one, that covers mechanical devices.

Mr. CHANEY. Under that word ”writing” you want to exclude such people as Mr. Sousa entirely from its operation in respect to self-playing musical instruments?