College and Research Libraries


Review Articles 

Copyright 

The Law of Literary Property. By Philip 
Wittenberg. Cleveland: World Publishing 
Co. 248p. $5 . 

Philip \Vittenberg, who is a lecturer in 
law at Columbia University, attempts here 
to provide a book on literary property "writ-
ten for the layman in law who is -professional 
in the field of writing, and for those who 
publish and distribute in the various media 
of communication ... " 

The first chapter deals with the develop-
ment of the concept of literary property. 
This is followed by discussions of common-
law literary property, statutory copyright, 
international . copyright, plagiarism, piracy, 
and infringement, as well as of fair use , quo-
tation , burlesque, and permissions. The parts 
of the book which do not deal with literary 
property, in the sense of common law or 
statutory copyright, cover the protection of 
names and titles, protection of ideas, the 
problems of libel , the right of privacy, and 
the general problem of censorship. 

Th e Law of Lit erary Prop er ty is less heavy 
going than most such books because of its 
careful selection of cases to illustrate prin-
ciples rather than to provide full documen-
tation. However, under the present copy-
right laws it is not surprising that Mr. Wit-
tenberg has to give examples of exceptions 
for many of the principles he states. 

Some of the book's definitions are con-
fusing . For example, in attempting to dif-
ferentiate among plagiarism, piracy, and in-
fringement Mr. Wit.tenberg says, "Piracy is 
just plain theft. Sometimes it is legally cul-
pable as infringement, sometimes not." Then 
he gives examples, as if they consituted 
piracy, of the compilation into an anthology 
of works on which the copyright had ex-
pired or never existed. Elsewhere in the 
book he points out that many types of things 
are in the public domain. It is a little dif-
ficult to see why he should castigate as piracy 
the use of materials that belong to the pub-
lic. As he says, "the authors had no re-
course," but there appears to be no reason 

for believing that the law intended for them 
to have any recourse once their copyright 
had expired or if they had published with-
out copyright. 

Such minor errors as this are all too easy 
to find in any book in this very complicated 
field, and obviously Mr. Wittenberg does not 
intend this book to make each reader his 
own copyright attorney. He does make real 
contributions in his semi-p opular presenta-
tion of the subject and in recognition of the 
recent trend towards the use of other means, 
such as the law of unfair competition, to 
protect such things as titles, which are spe-
cifically not included in the copyright. 

It is doubtful tha t the slight treatments 
of the law of libel or of the issues of censor-
ship add much to the book. Furthermore, 
the right of users to make private use of 
copyright materials, whether in the original 
or photocopy, is barely touched upon. Nev-
ertheless, the book as a whole can be com-
mended as an attempt to provide a readable 
discussion of this confused field.-Ralph R. 
Shaw} Rutgers Universi ty. 

Recent Foreign Books on 
The Graphic Arts, 
Bibliography, and 
Library Science 

Heinrich Roloff's B eitriige zur Geschichte 
der Universitiitsbibliothek Rostock im 19. 
]ahrhundert (Leipzig, Otto Harrassowitz, 
1955; Z entra lblatt filr Biblioth ekswesen

1 
"Bei-

heft," 79) is a significant contribution to the 
history of a major German university library. 
It is not a comprehensive history, for it deals 
with two major aspects of Rostock's develop-
ment in the last century. The first part de-
scribes Friedrich Wilhelm Ronnberg's plan 
for the reorganization of the library in 1830, 
and the second is concerned with the library 
of Ferdinand Kammerer ( 17 84-1841) and its 
incorporation into the University of Rostock 
Library. 

238 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 

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