COPYRIGHT BILL.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 84, 10 April 1911, Page 7

COPYRIGHT BILL.

MAKING FOR UNIFORMITY. By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. LONDON, Bth April. The Copyright Bill, read a second time in the House of Commons yesterday, seeks to effect the recommendations of the Berlin, Convention of 13th November, 1903. y Its provisions apply to dramatised novels, translations, lectures, original adaptations, and artistic and architectural works which have hitherto been excluded from copyright. Musical works are also to be protected against mechanical reproductions. Copyright in future under the Bill is to subsist for the life of tlie author and for fifty years thereafter. Power is given to the Comptroller of Patents to license for publications 'books which are unduly withheld from the public. Mr. Sydney Buxton, President of the Board of Trade, in introducing the Bill, said he believed it would assist in the publication of cheap editions. [The 'Imperial Copyright Conference, held last year, recommended that a measure bo passed applying to all British possessions. Under the existing law, British copyright in books endures from the date of ths- first publication for the life of the author and seven years after his death, or for ti peiiod of forty -two j-ears, whichever psriod shall bo tho longer. Copyright in posthumous works dates from publication*. Playright endures from the date of the first representation fo-r the lif9 of the author and seven years after his death, or for a period of forty-two years, whichever period shall be tho longer. As to music, the period of protection is thesame as for bocks and plays. The right in lectures endures for twonly-oisfht' years. Aifisiic copyright includes paintings, drawings, photographs, prints, engravings and sculptures. Commercial, copyright affords protection to the design of any article of manufacture, by any means applied.]