The provisions having to do with international copyright become operative in the case of a foreign state only when the president proclaims that the state has fulfilled the condition of reciprocity. The act of 1891 was put into force with foreign states as follows:--1st of July 1891, Great Britain, Belgium, France, Switzerland; 8th of March 1892, Germany (by separate treaty); 31st of October 1892, Italy; 8th of May 1893, Denmark; 15th of July 1895, Spain; 20th of July 1895, Portugal; 27th of February 1896, Mexico; 13th of April 1896, Sweden and Norway; 25th of May 1896, Chile; 19th of October 1899, Costa Rica; 20th of November 1899, the kingdom of the Netherlands. In the case of each state the territory covered by the provisions of the law included the possessions, dependencies, &c. The copyright agreement with Great Britain therefore covered the crown colonies of the empire, including India and the self-governing dominions and states, such as Canada, Australia, &c. An American work duly entered for copyright in Great Britain secures, as a British publication secures, the protection of copyright under the provisions of the Bern convention throughout the territory of the several states that are parties to that convention.
19. Literary authors had protection for their literary work much earlier than artists for their artistic productions. Pictures and illustrations, when included in books or newspapers, are protected by the law which applies to the latter, but that is a separate question. It was not until the reign of George II. that the legislature in England afforded any protection for the work of artists. The English law on artistic copyright is alone considered in this account, the American having been included in the section _United States_ above (18), while for other countries the details are so various that it is only possible to refer the reader to the leading text-books.
The first Artists' Copyright Bill was passed in the interest of William Hogarth, one of the greatest of English painters, who was engraver as well as painter, and who devoted a considerable portion of his time to engraving his own works. No sooner, however, were these published than his market was seriously damaged by the issue of inferior copies of his engravings by other publishers. To protect Hogarth from such piracy the Engraving Copyright Act 1734 was passed, which provided that "every person who should invent and design, engrave, etch, or work in mezzotinto or chiaroscuro, any historical or other print or prints, should have the sole right and liberty of printing and representing the same for the term of fourteen years, to commence from the day of the first publishing thereof, which shall be truly engraved with the name of the proprietor on each plate, and printed on every such print or prints." The penalty for piracy was the forfeiture of the plate and all prints, with a fine of 5s. for every pirated print.