Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
KITTREDGE COPYRIGHT MEASURE APPROVED by COMPOSERS and PUBLISHERS.
The Fight Between the House and Senate Over the Copyright Bill Is Being Watched With In-
terest—Senator Kittredge's Report Is So Eminently Fair to the Music People That They
Feel It Should be Accepted—His Comments Which Are Reproduced Below Are Written in
a Broad Spirit That Satisfies the Publishers.
(Special to The Review.)
Washington, D. C , Feb. 11, 1907.
Though the Patents Committee of the House
urge the passage of their bill, No. 25,133, which is
also indorsed by the minority of the Senate Com-
mittee, the Kittredge measure has the entire ap-
proval of the composers, writers and publishers.
The Review's last issue, in various parts of the
issue, gave a synopsis of Chairman Currier's and
Senator Mallory's respective reports, besides sum-
ming up the situation and the general outlook
for the enactment of the bill. There has been
comparatively little, if any, change in affairs since
Friday. Both Senator Kittredge and Representa-
tive Currier declare they will stand by their bills
until Hades freezes over, and the outcome is being
watched with absorbing interest, not only by those
directly interested, but by others who are kept
guessing as to the ultimate result.
Senator Kittredge's report in support of the
Senate bill hinges largely on the musical sec-
tions, which is also true of the other statements.
His comments seem so eminently fair to the
music people, being the only one claiming their
moral right, which cannot be claimed by the oppo-
sition at any stage, to the product of their own
brains, that they are given in full, as follows:
As to the subsidiary privileges it adds certain ones
(as the exclusive right to convert a dramatic work into
a nondramatic ; to rearrange or adapt it if a musical
composition, to vary or adapt it if a work of a r t ; to
deliver it in public for profit if a lecture) deemed
within the contemplation of existing law and sup-
ported generally by foreign legislation ; and in the case
of musical compositions a specification broad enough to
cover reproductions by mechanical devices, such as per-
forated rolls or disk records. The right of the copy-
right proprietor to prohibit such reproductions without
his consent, your committee regard as essential, if his
right is to be in fact an "exclusive" one, as specified
in the constitution. It has been supported in some for-
eign countries, especially Italy, not merely upder stat-
utes general in terms, but upon principle. Where, on
the other hand, it has been denied abroad it appears to
have been denied not upon principle, but under the In-
terpretation of particular statutes. In a pending suit it
is being contended for as existing under our present
statutes ; and the contention may be upheld in the de-
cision of the Supreme Court in this suit when ren-
dered. It was not, however, upheld in the lower courts,
and your committee favor the broader specifications of
the bill which will insure the protection hereafter.
From the time of the framing of the constitution of
the United States, and prior to that date under the
common law of England, it has been a universally ac-
cepted conclusion that the author of literary produc-
tions should be entitled to the exclusive right to repro-
duce and sell for his own profit copies of his literary
works. Subsequently, the right of the artist to control
the multiplication and sale of copies of his artistic pro-
ductions became recognized, and for many years past
has been admitted and enforced in this country and
abroad.
Prom a very early day it has been well recognized
that music in the form of printed score, in sheets or
books, was entitled to the same kind of protection as
literary and artistic productions. They were all Intel-
lectual works of an author, things born from the cre-
ative powers of the mind, nonexistent before, and na-
tural property by virtue of their creation. In order to
encourage science and the useful arts, Congress was
authorized by the constitution to grant to authors for
limited periods the exclusive right to their writings;
and the courts have since held that works of art and
music in the form of written or printed score were in-
cluded within the meaning of the word "writings" as
used in the constitution.
Of late years an entirely new art has developed as
SPECIAL TO THE TRADE!
P O R THIRTY D A V S OINL,Y
These 1907 Song Hits at 10c. per copy or $10 per hundred.
"EVERYONE IS IN SLUMBERLAND BUT YOU AND ME."
"TWINKLING STAR."
"SWEETHEARTS MAY COME AND SWEETHEARTS
MAY GO."
"WHERE THE JESSAMINE IS BLOOMING,FAR AWAY."
Instrumental
PAULA VAL.SE CAPRICE
It will pay you to keep in touch with us. Write to-day.
THIEBES-STtERUIV MUSIC CO., St. Louis, Mo.
the result of ingenious and elaborate invention. Many
forms of machines have been made, purely mechanical
in their nature, which are capable, when properly or-
ganized, of producing sound in the air, and a succes
sion of sounds, which, when properly combined, form a
good substitute for music rendered by voice or by a
performer through the instrumentality of an instru-
ment. These mechanical appliances have substituted
and displaced in large measure the personality of the
performer and have made it possible to duplicate the
skilful performer many hundreds of times by having the
artist perform a piece of music before the machine and
then mechanically reproducing the original made by the
artist. The inventors of these ingenious and valuable
machines are entitled to high credit for their ingenuity
and for the benefit which they have bestowed upon man-
kind, and they, receive a large pecuniary reward from
the exclusive right to manufacture and sell their in-
struments, granted by the patent system of the United
States. These inventions, ingenious they may be, are,
however, as dead bones without the vivifying spirit of
the musician. I t is he who creates the thought they
reproduce and sell.
Without him they would be
nothing.
The courts of the United States have decided in
cases which have recently been tried, that while the
spirit of the constitution is broad enough to protect
the composer against the unlicensed use of his music
in these mechanical instruments, the letter of the stat-
ute is insufficient to enable him to restrain such un-
licensed use.
The committee has listened with deep interest to the
wail of the musician and the protest of the composer
against the unauthorized appropriation of his thought
and spirit without compensation to him, and they have
been moved by a sense of natural justice at this de-
mand for protection from so meritorious and valuable
a class of the community. Some protest has been heard
from the manufacturers of mechanical musical instru-
ments against any legislation which would control their
unrestricted right to use the property of others for
their private gain, but this protest has been so mani-
festly selfish that it has only served to impress upon
the committee more strongly the injustice of the ex-
isting state of the law.
It has been said that to give to the composers the
exclusive right to control their musical compositions
for all purposes might foster an odious monopoly by
permitting some rich corporation to purchase all the
compositions of the most famous artists and thus pre-
vent their competitors in business from being able to
offer to the public the same music which they alone
control. But the committee has thought thai this was
a right of private contract which, when exercised in a
legal manner, should not be restrained by legislation;
the fear of monopoly and combination was felt to be a
groundless one due to two causes: First, the anti-trust
legislation of the United States has to-day reached such
a state of development that it is hardly possible for any
combination to exist which is in restraint of trade or
designed to increase the price of commodities to the
people; and second, that the protection of composers
in the use and sale of their compositions will neces-
sarily so encourage and stimulate composers that the
supply of music of the first order which will be avail-
able for use by the various mechanical music-machine
manufacturers will be practically unlimited, and no
monop'oly will be possible.
It seems obvious to this committee that if the mu-
sical composition is entitled to protection it is not only
against the reprinting of a musical score, but ^gainst
any publication or reproduction of the composer's work.
The musical composer's work is meant to be uttered in
sound, and if science has discovered a method of repro-
ducing that sound, thus taking possession of the very
soul and essence of a musical composer's work without
the medium of actual printing, the musical composer is
entitled to protection against this new and more com-
plete form of appropriation quite as much as he is en-
titled to protection from a stage performance of his
opera or orchestral "performance of his symphony.
In another respect, however, the bill narrows the
protection heretofore accorded to musical compositions.
It limits the prohibition against public performance of
them (without the assent of the copyright proprietor)
to public performance for profit. (Under Rev. Stat.,
Sec. 4966, as amended by the act of January 6, 1897,
the prohibition was general.) And the prohibition is,
to apply only when the right of such performance for
profit is expressly reserved by notice upon the com-
position as printed.
The existing statutes attempt specifications which are
unfortunate because necessarily imperfect and requiring
frequent additions to cover new forms or new processes.
The bill in its general definition substitutes a general
term, "all the works of an author." The term used in
the constitution is "writings." But Congress has al-
ways construed this term broadly, and in doing so has
been uniformly supported by judicial decision. I t has,
for instance, interpreted it as authorizing subject-matter
so remote from its popular significance as photographs,
paintings, statuary and dramas, even if unwritten.
As thus interpreted,. the word "writings" would to
day in popular parlance be more nearly represented by
the word "works" ; and this the bill adopts; referring
back, however, to the word "writings" by way of safe
anchorage, but regarding this as including "all forms
of record in which the thought of an author may be
recorded and from which it may be read or repro-
duced." * * *
The deliberate theft of a dramatic or musical com-
position by the wilful performance of it for profit
without the assent of the author or proprietor is now
"by law a misdemeanor. Uy the bill any wilful infringe-
ment for profit is made a misdemeanor ; as is also the
insertion or removal of a copyright notice with fraud-
ulent intent.
It must be remembered that the only fight on
over the bill is between the music forces and the
mechanical instrument contingent; but that over
thirty other lines of business are also concerned
in the enactment of the law, and it is possible
some pressure will be brought to bear on these
warring elements. The publishers vow and de-
clare the bill can go hang unless their views are
embodied entire, with the instrumental people
equally determined and obstinate. Possibly some-
body will be thrown out of the window should
the bill pass at this session, and its chances pro
and con are about equal.
TO OVERCOME DIFFICULTIES IN SINGING.
Students in vocal culture have found that to
overcome the many difficulties in singing and to
acquire the proper placement of the voice re-
quires constant and persistent exercising. In or-
der to reduce the strain on the singer, a New
York man has devised an instrument which he
calls a "voice placer." I t is made of a thin vi-
bratory strip of spring steel, shaped to conform
to the general outline of the human face, a rub-
ber ball on the lower end pressing against the
small cavity in the mouth just above the front
teeth. The pressure of this ball has the function
of localizing and holding the attention of the
singer, while the vibratory movements of the
strip measures to some extent the volume of the
sound emitted. The strip is supported in posi-
tion by a nose guard and a band around the head.
The general appearance of the appliance is simi-
lar to the nose guard of a football player, al-
though being of steel instead of rubber.
STERN & CO.'S TRADE CHAT.
Among the many singers of illustrated songs
who are meeting with great success with S. R.
Henry's great child song, "We Have No One to
Care for Us Now," are Joseph Maxwell, George
Thomas, Ira Kassner, Blanche Bijou, Frank For-
est, Madeline Burdette, Jimmie Flynn, Bffle Stiles,
Dan Robinson, Alice Jennings, Dietrich & Sher-
man, Harry Henry, May Trado, Diamond and
Smith, and Pete Murray.
Nellie Rowell reports that she never had a song
that met with the success that is greeting "The
Bird on Nellie's Hat," the great comic hit from
the "House of Hits."
AN INTERESTING MANUSCRIPT.
Among the manuscripts owned by the Society
of Music Friends, in Vienna, one sheet is espe-
cially interesting, for one side shows Beeth-
oven's handwriting, the other that of Schubert.
Dr. Mandyschewski thinks that Beethoven in
the first instance committed to paper a composi-
tion, and that, in some unexplained way, the
sheet came into the possession of Schubert, who
probably deemed it an honor to jot down his
notes upon paper which had been used by
Beethoven. The Schubert side of the document
is not quite filled up, and in the empty space the
names of the notes are given in letters.
Another new sign appeared on West 28th street,
New York, Tuesday, that of Folger-Wood Co., who
opened publishing rooms at No. 48. Other signs
in this classic neighborhood, sacred to the popu-
lar melody, have undergone changes, but as these
occur so frequently it is bewildering to keep tab
on the chameleon-like banners of "Harmony
Square."
The interest of W. L. Banchester in the music
store of Blocker & Co., Fulton, Mo., has been
purchased by Manard Traver.