RUSSIA'S RETURNING SANITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 230, 28 September 1929, Page 14 (Supplement)

RUSSIA'S RETURNING SANITY.

MENTAL LABOUR RECOGNISED TO ENJOY RIGHTS OF "WORKERS." According to a section in "the new law of property rights" recently promulgated by the Moscow Government, the rights of authors and composers are "identified with those of "employed labour." Heretofore, if a publisher went bankrupt,' all his employees were paid off first from any of the realised assets and the authors had to stand in line with the remaining creditors. According to the new law, authors, artists and composers are now placed in the same category as the workers and will have with them a first claim on the assets of their bankrupt "employer." The new law also allows authors ana composers more remuneration for their work by limiting the free use of literary, musical and artistic creations, which formerly could be reproduced by a third party without the consent of the originator. But the law does not at present recognise the rights of authors in regard to translations of their works. An important clause in the new law, which supersedes that of 1925, is the standardising of contracts between authors , ' and composers and the State. Since the revolution the State had been in a position to dictate the contracts. Now there is a provision for. the safeguarding of the interests of authors and composers, providing for either a fixed purchase price or a running scale of royalties based on the mlmber of the work sold. ■ This is explained in an annex saying that mental labour now receives the same protection from the State that physical labour had hitherto solely enjoj'ed.