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2. A copyright work is not an invention nor a patent; it is a contribution to literature. It is not material, but intellectual, and has no natural relation to a department which is charged with the care of the mechanic arts; and it belongs rather to a national library system than to any other department of the civil service. The responsibility of caring for it would be an incident to the similar labors already devolved upon the Librarian of Congress; and the receipts from copyright certificates would much more than pay its expense, thus leaving the treasury the gainer by the change.

3. The advantage of securing to our national library a complete collection of all American copyright publications can scarcely be over-estimated. If such a law as that enacted in 1870 had been enforced since the beginning of the government, we should now have in the Library of Congress a complete representation of the product of the American mind in every department of science and literature. Many publications which are printed in small editions, or which become "out of print" from the many accidents which continually destroy books, would owe to such a library their sole chance of preservation. We ought to have one comprehensive library in the country, and that belonging to the nation, whose aim it should be to preserve the books which other libraries have not the room nor the means to procure.

4. This consideration assumes additional weight when it is remembered that the Library of Congress is freely open to the public day and evening throughout the year, and is rapidly becoming the great reference library of the country, resorted to not only by Congress and the residents of Washington, but -by students and writers from all parts of the Union, in search of references and authorities not elsewhere to be found. The advantage of having all American publications accessible upon inquiry would be to build up at Washington a truly national library, approximately complete and available to all the people. These considerations prevailed with Congress to effect the amendment in copyright registration referred to. By enactment of the statute of 1870 all the defects in the methods of registration and deposit of copies were obviated. The original records of copyright in all the States were thenceforward kept in the office of the Librarian of Congress. All questions as to literary property, involving a search of records to determine points of validity, such as priority of entry, names and residence of actual owners, transfers or assignments, timely deposit of the required copies, etc., could be determined upon inquiry at a single office of record. These inquiries are extremely numerous, and obviously very important, involving frequently large interests in valuable publications in which litigation to establish the rights of authors, publishers or infringers has been commenced or threatened. By the full records of copyright entries thus preserved, moreover, the Library of Congress (which is the property of the nation) has been enabled to secure what was before unattainable, namely, an approximately complete collection of all American books, etc., protected by copyright, since the legislation referred to went into effect. The system has been found in practice to give general satisfaction; the manner of securing copyright has been made plain and easy to all, the office of record being now a matter of public notoriety; and the test of experience during thirty years has established the system so thoroughly that none would be found to favor a return to the former methods. The Act of 1870 provided for the removal of the collection of copyright books and other publications from the over-crowded Patent Office to the Library of Congress. These publications were the accumulations of about eighty years, received from the United States District Clerks' offices under the old law. By request of the Commissioner of Patents all the law books and a large number of technical works were reserved at the Department of the Interior. The residue, when removed to the Capitol, were found to number 23,070 volumes, a much smaller number than had been anticipated, in view of the length of time during which the copy tax had been in operation. But the observance of the acts requiring deposits of copyright publications with the Clerks of the United States District Courts had been very defective (no penalty being provided for non-compliance), and, moreover, the Patent Office had failed to receive from the offices of original deposit large numbers of publications which should have been sent to Washington. From one of the oldest States in the Union not a single book had been sent in evidence of copyright. The books, however, which were added to the Congressional Library, although consisting largely of school books and the minor literature of the last half century, comprised many valuable additions to the collection of American books, which it should be the aim of a National Library to render complete. Among them were the earliest editions of the works of many well-known writers, now out of print and scarce.

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