The CHAIRMAN. Do you think they ought to be printed in the record of the meeting?
Mr. PUTNAM. I do, Mr. Chairman. I do not refer to mere formal communications, or those that may be disposed of absolutely by the copyright office. I do not mean all communications that come to us with reference to the bill. These are simply four communications, from four participants in the conference. One of them, Mr. A. W. Elson, makes certain definite proposals for amendments, including one to section 13 which would extend the manufacturing clause. He has sent a copy of this to you, Mr. Chairman, and I assume that it will go in the record, with the request for a hearing.
The second is from Mr. Edmund C. Stedman, who was a participant, but is in ill-health, and can not be here; but it contains an expression upon the bill that I think should go in the record.
Another is from Mr. Leo Feist, also a participant, and contains an expression about the bill that he would have made here orally if present. I think that should go in.
Another is from Mr. Ansley Wilcox, who represented certain lithographic interests very much concerned with the protection of such prints as posters, and very much concerned, therefore, in the specifications of subject-matter. He writes a communication which I think should go into the record, expressing his content with the specifications of sections 4 and 5.
The CHAIRMAN. Those will be printed in the record.
(The above-mentioned papers will also be found at the end of this statement of Mr. Putnam.)
Mr. PUTNAM. I have information, Mr. Chairman, that when the matter of the reproduction of music by mechanical devices comes up for discussion, Mr. John J. O'Connell, an attorney of New York, would like to be heard, representing ten manufacturers of automatic piano players in New York City, and desiring to be heard only in opposition to those portions of the bill respecting musical copyrights, and that in connection with the same general subject-matter Mr. Howlett Davis, an inventor of material that enters into these devices, desires an opportunity to make some opening remarks, pointing out how the proposed bill will, if enacted, act in restraint of invention, and show how it encroaches upon the existing patent laws.