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THE GREEN BAG
ship of the bed thereof, so far as the tide ebbs and flows, has the right to have water in the streams reach its property undiminished in quantity, except as it is used by upper riparian owners as part of the public, and that it may regulate the manner of the disposition of its property rights in the water. In consequence of this, it is said that New Jersey Pub. Laws, 1905, p. 461, making it unlawful for any person to transport through pipes water of any fresh water river of the State into another State for use therein is not void as a violation of the interstate commerce clause of the Federal Constitution, inasmuch as the right of the State to preserve the common property cannot be destroyed merely because the unlaw ful abstracter of the water intends to transport it into another State for use therein. It is also held that the statute, though enacted subsequent to the organization of a company organized under the General Incorporation Act, and having the right to transport and sell water as a lawful busi ness does not impair the obligation of a contract of such company to transport water outside the State,
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (See Insurance.) COPYRIGHTS. (Musical Composition.) U. S. C. C. for S. D. of N. Y. — Two copyright points of some importance arise in White-Smith Music Publishing Co. v. Apollo Company, 139 Federal Reporter, 427. The composer of a piece of music placed it in the hands of a publishing company for publication and sale. The company after ward copyrighted the publication in its own name, which action the composer ratified. It is held that it might be reasonably inferred that the composer intended to authorize the company to copyright the publication, and that after his rati fication the company was vested with the legal title to the copyright, which would support an action for its infringement. A more novel point is involved in the proposition that a musical com position, as an idea or intellectual conception, is not subject to copyright, but only its material embodiment in the form of a writing or print may be copyrighted, and a copyright of such a printed composition is not infringed by a perfo rated record or sheet designed for use with mech anism to play the composition on a musical instrument. The reproduction that it was claimed was an infringement was designed for use in a mechan ical piano-player, and consisted of a sheet of paper with perforations, which it -was impracticable to read for the purpose of singing or playing the composition represented by the perforations
The theory of copyright is extensively entered into, and it is stated that a copyright gives the author or publisher the exclusive right of multi plying copies of what he has written or printed, and that to be an infringement, the infringing article must be a substantial copy of the whole or of a material part. Analogous cases involv ing the right to reproduce compositions by means of phonographs are cited, and it is held that as the perforated sheets can be used only in connec tion with a certain mechanism and not as a sub stitute for the printed composition, they do not constitute an infringement.
COPYRIGHTS. (Price Restrictions.) U- S. C. C. for S. D. of N. Y. — In Bobbs-Mcrrill v. Strauss, 139 Federal Reporter, 155, it is held that where the publishers of a copyrighted book printed a notice on the page following the fly-leaf, that the price of the book at retail was $i net, and that no dealer was licensed to sell it at a less price, and the sale at a less price would be treated as an infringement of the copyright, such notice did not purport to reserve to the publisher any in terest in the book or any right to control it or the action of its owner in the use and disposition thereof, and was insufficient to constitute a license agreement or contract restricting or modifying the absolute title acquired by purchasers. It is also maintained that where the publisher volun tarily parted with all control over the books hy selling them to purchasers, such purchasers were neither licencees nor agents of the publisher, though buying the books for resale, and that con sequently such resale did not, in spite of the notice, constitute an infringement of the copy right under Rev. St., § 4964 (U. S. Comp. St., p. 3413), declaring that it is an infringement of a copyright to print or publish a copyrighted book without the consent of the proprietor given in writing, or knowingly to sell, or expose for sale, a copy or copies of such copyrighted book when unlawfully printed or imported. CORPORATIONS. (See Constitutional Equity and National Banks.)
Law
CRIMINAL LAW. (Forgery — Telegrams.) N. Y. C. of A. — A holding based on a statute which, so far as the writer knows, is peculiar to the State of New York, is contained in People v. Abeel, 75 Northeastern Reporter, 307. Penal Code of New York, § 514, subd. 3, provides that any person who shall alter or utter any telegram or other written communication purporting to have been written or signed by another person
