A large portion of the selections, musical and recitational, on talking-machine records are not copyrightable or copyrighted. These records, however, with all their originality, personality of the recitationist or singer, and peculiarity of arrangement, etc., should be copyrighted, and the private competitor prevented from purloining an artistic and characteristic production.
So-called talking-machine records in this respect differ quite materially from the mechanical organ and piano for the reason that a so-called talking-machine record is an exact record of all the modulations, and all the characteristic articulations of the voice, as well as of all the characteristics of an instrumentation. In other words, it is an exact picture of all the merits and demerits of the original, and the original is reproduced with an exactness, so that frequently, at a distance, in the present perfected state of the art, the reproduction may very well be mistaken for the original.
This record of the voice and instrumentation for sound reproducing is an art which was not commercially available or perfected when the earlier copyright laws were passed, and therefore was not included.
The following were submitted by Mr. Pettit at the meeting of June 8, 1906, embodying his proposed amendments to the bill:
_To the honorable Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives._
GENTLEMEN: Referring to the proposed bill, "To amend and consolidate the acts respecting copyrights," now before the committee, I would propose the following amendments:
Amend section 3 (p. 3, line 8) by adding continuously at the end of said section the following:
"_And provided_, That no devices, contrivances, or appliances, or dies, or matrices for making the same, such as referred to in clause (_g_), section 1, made prior to the date this act shall go into effect, shall be subject to any subsisting copyright."
Amend section 5 (page 4, lines 2 to 3) by adding between lines 2 and 3, before the word "Photographs," the following: "(_j_) Talking-machine records."
Amend section 18, clause (_b_), (page 14, line 14) by adding between the word "composition" and the word "any" the words "any talking-machine record."
Amend section 23 by striking out from the clause marked "First" (page 17, lines 18 to 20) the following: "or any device especially adapted to reproduce to the ear any copyrighted work."