Mr. Fishback to Mr. Gresham.

No. 279.]

Sir: I have the honor to report that in accordance with the instructions contained in Department No. 241, Minister Pitkin on July 11, 1893, addressed a note to the Argentine minister of foreign affairs, calling his excellency’s attention to a legation note of June 10, 1891, a copy of which was inclosed in legation No. 267 to-the Department of State, and requested the Argentine Government to indicate whether it were disposed to avail itself of the privilege offered by section 13 of the act of the U.S. Congress “to amend title 60, chapter 3, of the Revised [Page 2] Statutes of the United States relating to copyrights;” that a reply from the foreign office has been received at this legation containing an opinion from the Argentine attorney-general, a translation of which is inclosed, and stating that the said opinion had been adopted by the minister of justice, culture, and public worship.

I have, etc.,

Geo. W. Fishback.
[Inclosure in No. 279.—Translation.]

Opinion of Argentine attorney-general.

Mr. Minister: The United States of America, developing an inventive power superior to that of other nations, logically tends to insure the permanent property of its extraordinary productions and inventions, and to restrict the importation of similar foreign ones.

To this end responds its eminently protective legislation of the national industry and commerce, and this same purpose has been kept in view in the law referring to copyright, which his excellency the minister of the United States presents to your excellency, inviting the Argentine Government to avail itself of the privileges offered in section 13.

In that section the benefits of the North American law are offered to the citizens and subjects of all foreign nations in exchange for a substantially equal concession by virtue of a special law or of international treaties.

The law which is offered for your excellency’s acceptance recognizes the author’s right to books, maps, drawings, plans, dramatic or musical productions, engravings, illustrations, photography, paintings, chromos, statues, models of works of art, etc., and consequently declares that no person may reproduce, print, copy, execute, finish, or sell such objects except their authors or concessionaires, and this subject to the following prescriptions of the same law:

(1)
Registration of the title of the work or of the description of the guaranteed object.
(2)
Publication of such registration at the expense of the interested party, during four weeks, in one or more newspapers of the United States.
(3)
Deposit of copies or models in the Library of the U. S. Congress, it being understood that in the publication of a book, photograph, chromo, or lithograph, the copies that shall be delivered or deposited are to be respectively printed with the typographical compositions, plates, negatives, or lithographic drawings made in the United States.
(4)
That during the term of the author’s rights the importation of objects equal to those guaranteed to their authors will be prohibited, it being necessary that the typographical composition, plates, negatives, etc., be made in the territory of the United States.
(5)
Charges payable to the Treasury for the inscription, declaration, concession, etc.

I have stated the principal prescriptions of the North American law as a necessary condition for obtaining the recognition of authors’ rights, in order to prove, by its own terms, that if the law can be beneficial to the progress of the United States and other nations of great scientific, literary, or artistic growth, it is contrary to that same growth in new countries where literature and industries are in their infancy.

International free trade brings us all the productions of the most progressive countries in science, industries, art, and literature, and the national industry, formed in a great measure by foreigners, copies engravings, prints, lithographs, and in fact reproduces without restrictions, the great works that instruct, teach, and prepare the public spirit for an original national production in a probably not remote future.

Until that future arrives, our rising literature and arts, notwithstanding their great growth, are not yet in a position to overcome the obstacles of a legislation which, in exchange for the rights of authorship, imposes such onerous conditions as the publication, and composition with plates, negatives, and typographical types made in the United States.

If our industrial, artistic, and literary productions can not yet aspire to compete advantageously with the great nations of the old continent and with the United States of America, a law, or a treaty establishing and accepting the principal condition of the law presented for your excellency’s consideration, would lack its fundamental basis, which is reciprocity of benefits.

My opinion, therefore, is that it would be convenient for your excellency to reserve your acceptance until the increasing growth of our intellectual and material progress reaches the high level that it needs to really make effective the benefits of reciprocity offered in the North American law.

Binlano Kier.