remedy, but imprisonment would be useless unless there was public sympathy behind it. As long as there was a public grievance owing to the excessive price charged for the music, no matter what legislation was passed it would be a failure. The solution was the 6d. edition, which would enable hawkers and others to sell to their customers at a profit, and only legitimate music would then be sold. As regarded imprisonment, it was complained last year that prison accommodation was becoming insufficient. Imprisonment was now being passed for the smallest thing—almost for blowing one's nose and the result was that the prisons were becoming overcrowded, numbers going to prison rather than pay the fines. How many men were there in the market places of London who would run the risk of being sent to prison, where they would be better fed and better housed, for what would not be considered a dishonourable offence? For himself he would not object to the Second Reading of the Bill. The question was not the rejection of the Bill but the protection of the public, and he hoped the House would remember when the Bill came back in the Report stage to take their time at any rate in discussing the details.

*MR. MALCOLM (Suffolk, Stowmarket) said he ventured to intervene in the debate because he had been for a very debate because he had been for a very long time interested in the subject before the House. Hon. Members who had been any considerable time in the House

had seen the hon. Member for Mid. Lanark

play many parts, and he hoped the hon. Member would forgive him for a goodhumoured analogy when he said that the hon. Member surprised the House by sailing in in the character of Captain Kidd, under the Jolly Roger, to look after the interests of the pirates. There was no doubt that those

who were interested in the Bill were at present suffering from certain quite admitted evils. The operations of the pirates struck not only at the roots of the prosperity of the musical community and the rights of property, which some people did not appear to regard very much, but he was not putting it too high when he said that they struck also at

that respect which people ought to feel for the law and public morality generally. Parliament had granted absolute privileges to the musical profession in the Copyright Act, and he thought that the hon. Member for Mid. Lanark was quite wide of the mark when he said that those privileges were granted solely in the interests of the public. They were granted to protect the brain-property of British citizens, who had as much right to that property as people had to material property. It was a humiliating position for Parliament to find that the Act which was passed in 1842, and which it was thought granted privileges to the musical community, was nothing but an empty form which was defied by the enemies of musical copyright. Was it any wonder, when a procession of four-in-hands was driven through an Act of Parliament over the defenceless bodies of music publishers and composers, that they should come to Parliament and ask Parliament to make good its word and intention as expressed in the Act of 1842 ? The evidence before the Committee showed falling receipts on the part of music publishers and diminishing royalties on the part of musical composers and singers, as a result of what he might call the State-aided invasion of the pirates, most of whom After an intimate were foreigners. acquaintance of fifteen years with music publishers and composers he knew that not only the publishers who had given evidence suffered but that the small men suffered too. Were they not to be allowed to stand for the small men? The hon.

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Member for Mid. Lanark ought to have justified his self-confident assertion that the music publishers were making large profits. As a matter of fact they did there was to be set against it the losses not. If on a fine song they made a profit, in the Bill was swift, sure, and cheap, and on other songs. The remedy provided he hoped the Government would help to pass the measure into law.

was being preached by the hon. Member for He objected to the new morality which Mid. Lanark. The hon. Member said, in effect, that what the public wanted it was to have at its own price and honestly, if it could get it, otherwise dishonestly; legally if it could get it, otherwise

Acts of 1842, 1869, and 1902. As regarded the Act of 1842, which the hon. Member for Mid. Lanark said was passed to encourage music and not to protect property, the preamble said

"Whereas it is expedient to amend the law relating to copyright and to afford greater encouragement to the production of literary works of lasting benefit to the world." then "copyright" was construed to

mean

"The sole and exclusive liberty of printing or otherwise multiplying copies of any subject to which the said word is herein applied."

The remedy against piracy in that Act was that the pirate should be liable to a civil action on the suit of the proprietor of such copyright to be brought in any Court of Record in that part of the British dominions in which the offence was committed. Then a further section said that pirated copies should be deemed to be the property of the proprietor of such copyright. The hon. Member for Mid. Lanark seemed to deny that copyright was in any sense personal property. He said that copyright was not property as was a watch. That was perfectly true; but was not copyright like the lease the hon. Member probably had of his own house. If the hon. Member disputed that he would refer him to Copinger, a well known authority on copyright who asked what property could be more a man's own than his literary works. There was clearly property in copyright, not perhaps the same as with the hon. Member's watch, but as was possessed by a leaseholder, and Parliament ought to give similar remedies for infringement of copyright as were given if a lease were in any way infringed. The Act of 1842 said that the pirate could be proceeded against by civil action, but it was absolutely impossible to proceed against a man who gave no name or address, or who gave a false address. A typical case had been mentioned in which a man transferred his business to his wife, and thus, though continuing to sell pirated music, evaded the injunction. It was obvious that civil proceedings against an anonymous person without means were useless. The Newspaper Act of 1869 had been held by the Attorney-General not to apply to publications such as music, and the fiat of the AttorneyGeneral was necessary to give effect to

proceedings under that Act. The Act of 1902 was deficient because it gave no power to enter premises by force to search for pirated copies. The case had been mentioned of a seller of pirated copies whose open shop was in the basement and whose stock of pirated music was in a locked-up shop upstairs which could not be entered by the police. In another case the door was barred and pirated music sold through a wicket. It was known that there was any number of pirated copies of music in the house,

but

the police were in the circumstance unable to make an entry and seize them. The police did eventually get in when the people inside got thirsty and sent out for beer, and several thousands of pirated copies were seized. That showed that the law required strengthening. Again, copies when seized remained at the police offices for a long period. The whole stock was not accessible when seizures were affected, and, before what was seized could be destroyed, the proprietor had to be summoned to appear; but it was impossible to discover the owner, so that the police were rapidly accumulating enormous masses of these productions, which they had no legal power to destroy. He thought that that required the remedy provided by the Bill.

Let the House glance at the extent of the evil which they had to face. Its magnitude had only become apparent since 1901. In that year, only fortyseven copyrights were infringed, now no fewer than 231 pirated copyright editions were known, and 467,575 copies had fallen into the hands of the Metropolitan Police in eleven months. In one week 45,000 copies were seized, and the "king of the pirates" had described these as only a small toll of the numbers that might be found. The composer and publisher, having invested their brains and money, had a right to look for some protection. Mr. Maybrick had told the Committee that, on asking the streetseller of a pirated work of his who the publisher was, the man said, "Good morning," and ran away too quickly to be overtaken. Some better remedy should be open to the composer other than that dependent on his ability to pursue the pirate through the streets of London.

That the law was ineffective was wellknown to those who had knowledge on the subject. Sir Harry Poland, Mr. Dickinson and Mr. Rose had all testified to that effect. They had described the method adopted by these pirates, and pointed out how a man hawking these piracies in the street only had a few copies in his possession at a time, which were practically of no value, and when he had sold them drew more out from his store in a depôt close by. Then there was the practice of canvassing from house to house, and of soliciting orders through the post, the letters being addressed from some small shop where only a few copies were kept. It was hard that the composer and publisher should put their brains into their work and secure publicity for it at great expense, risking many failures for a percentage of successes, and that then the pirate should step in and by ingenious means undersell them. Civil actions were

unsatisfactory in their results, for out of twelve Messrs. Boosey had only succeeded in recovering any costs in two instances, and they had spent no less than £500 in doing so. That was a very heavy outlay for so small a result, and what did the public gain by buying these cheap productions of copyright music? If it were a gain at all, it was one obtained at great cost, for ultimately it must result in starving out the best composers and discouraging all legitimate enterprise in this direction. The hon. Member for Mid. Lanark had stated that the right of copyright was not an absolute one.

MR. CALDWELL: I pointed out that in 1888 Parliament had so whittled down the sole right of representation and performance owing to abuses by the owners of copyright that it was practically inoperative.

*MR. COCHRANE said the hon. Member had complained also of the prices charged for copyrighted music. Did he want it fixed by some authority; did he desire a return to the Sumptuary Laws? Really he was a great Conservative at heart! Probably he would like to go back to the enactment of Queen Anne, under which the copyright prices were ordered to be fixed at a reasonable figure by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chancellor and Lord

Keeper of the Great Seal, the Bishop of London, the Chief Justices of the Queen's Bench and Common Pleas or other designated officials. The Bill in its main principles was one the House would do well to adopt. Some of the details would require careful consideration in Committee, especially those having relation to penalties. He believed it was in the public interest that the law should be clearly defined and its provisions made more stringent for the prevention of piracy leading to all kinds of fraud and impropriety. He hoped the House would give the Bill a Second Reading and refer it to the Standing Committee on Trade.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a second time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be committed to the Standing Committee on Trade, etc."— (Mr. Mount.)

MR. CALDWELL objected, and urged that the purely legal character of the Bill required consideration by the Committee

on Law.

SIR FREDERICK BANBURY (Camberwell, Peckham) agreed with this view, and moved the substitution of the Law Committee for the Trade Committee.

Amendment proposed

"To leave out the words 'Trade, etc.,' and insert the words, Law, etc.'"-(Sir Frederick Banbury.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. GALLOWAY submitted that the Bill dealt with a purely trade matter, and therefore they thought the Grand Committee on Trade the proper body to deal with it. So far as the promoters were concerned, however, it did not matter which Committee it was sent to.

MR. COHEN (Islington, E.), as a member of the Standing Committee on Trade, confessed that he felt totally disqualified to deal with the intricate points of law raised by the Bill. Could not the difficulty be met by nominating the President of the Board of Trade_to