CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

The law of copyright in the United States, especially in relation to literary work, is daily becoming of more interest to the owners of copyright in this country. Since the _Act of Congress_, 1891, commonly known as the _Chace Act_, those who are neither citizens of nor resident in the United States can acquire a copyright therein if copies of their books are printed from type set up in the United States and if their books are duly recorded there before publication either within or outside the United States. There is thus created for English authors a property which may be of considerable value if before publishing here they incur the trouble and expense of printing and recording their books in America.

Apart from this commercial interest which English authors and publishers have in a knowledge of American copyright law, there is the further interest to English lawyers in the large body of analogous case law to which the American statutes have given rise. These statutes were originally founded on our own statute of Anne, and, although the difference between the Acts now in force in the two countries is very wide in many respects, a great deal remains the same in substance, and the decisions of the American Courts afford us valuable precedents. These cases, however, must not be cited in our Courts at random, as has too frequently been done. In citing from the American reports, it is essential to compare the statutory provisions in America with the statutory provisions in this country, and ascertain whether the decisions are really applicable or not. It is for this reason that I have thought it expedient to keep the American law and the English law entirely separate. The practice of citing American cases promiscuously throughout a treatise on English Copyright Law I have found to be confusing and misleading.