MUSIC COPYRIGHT

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 25, 6 January 1928, Page 11

MUSIC COPYRIGHT

AMERICAN COURT'S DHCISION. Many people cannot understand why the broadcasting of music can be held to be an infringement of the copyright. It is of interest to recall that away back in June, 1924, an American Judge held that broadcasting was not an infringement of copyright. A newspaper report at the time stated: "Holding that the present copyright statute does not cover the broadcasting by radio of copyrighted music, Judge Smith Hickenlooper, in the United States District Court at Cincinnati, dismissed a suit filed by Jerome H. Remick and Co., Inc., New York City, publishers, against the Crosiey Radio Corporation in which the plaintiffs at--tenipted to compel the Crosley Corporation to pay a special tax for permission to plav copyrighted music "he high point in the opinion hand--ed down by Judge Hickenlooper is the holding that the broadcasting of a rendition of a copyrighted musical composition is not a ‘public performance for profit’ within the meaning of the music copyright law, for the reason that to constitute a public performance? in the sense Congress intended the words it is essential that there be an assemblage of persons congregated at the place of amusement for the purpose of hearing that which transpires there. "Judge Hickenlooper says radio broadcasting of a copyrighted musical composition is no more an infringement of the copyright than is the perforated music roll, which, under the decision in the case of the White-Smith Company v, Apollo Company, was held not to be a copy of a musical composition within the protection of the Copyright Act. He dismissed the Remick petition on the grounds that the facts meaty did not establish cause for acion.