oners' Hall
before he can take any action at law to protect it. The copyright does
not lapse if unregistered, but so long as it remains unregistered no
action at law can be taken on account of any infringement. A copyright
can be registered at any time, even after an infringement, but the owner
of the copyright cannot recover for any infringement before
registration. The act provides for both penalties and damages in the
following cases:--(1) For infringing copyright in the ordinary way by
issuing unlawful copies. (2) For fraudulently signing or affixing a
fraudulent signature to a work of art. (3) For fraudulently dealing with
a work so signed. (4) For fraudulently putting forth a copy of a work of
art, whether there be copyright in it or no, as the original work of the
artist. (5) For altering, adding to, or taking away from a work during
the lifetime of the author if it is signed, and putting it forth as the
unaltered work of the author. (6) For importing pirated works.

The incongruities of this act were so apparent that its promoters
desired to stop it, feeling that it would be better to have no bill at
all than one which conferred so little upon the people it was intended
to benefit; but Lord Westbury, the lord chancellor, who had charge of
the bill in the House of Lords, advised them to let it go through with
all its imperfections, that they might get the right of the painter to
protection recognized. This advice was followed, and the bill had no
sooner become law than a fresh effort was started to have it amended.
Year by year the agitation went on, with the exception only of a
period when Irish affairs took up all the attention of parliament, and
domestic legislation was rendered impossible. But in 1898 the
Copyright Association of Great Britain promoted a bill, which was
introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Herschell. It was a measure
designed to deal with all forms of copyright--literary, musical,
dramatic and artistic--and was remitted by the House of Lords for
consideration to a committee, which, having sat for three sessions,
decided not to proceed with Lord Herschell's measure, but to treat
literature and art in separate bills. It had under its consideration
an artistic bill, drafted for and presented by the Royal Academy, and
a literary bill and an artistic bill drafted by the committee itself.
The main proposals in the latter were to give copyright to the a