Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 9 Jun 1925

Vol. 12 No. 5

PUBLIC BUSINESS. - INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL PROPERTY (PROTECTION) BILL, 1925.

MINISTER for INDUSTRY and COMMERCE (Mr. McGilligan)

I move:—

Go gcuirtar ar ceal Ordú na Dála den 29adh Bealtaine ag cur an Bhille Maoine Tionnscail agus Tráchtála (Cosaint), 1925, chun Coiste Speisialta.	That the Order of the Dáil of the 29th May referring the Industrial and Commercial Property (Protection) Bill, 1925, to a Special Committee, be discharged.
Go bhfuil sé oiriúnach Có-Choiste do chódhéanamh ar a mbeidh seachtar ball den Dáil agus seachtar ball den tSeanad agus comhacht aca chun fios do chur ar dhaoine, ar pháipéirí agus ar bhreacacháin, Có-Choiste chun an Bille Maoine Tionnscail agus Tráchtála (Cosaint), 1925, do bhreithniú agus molta ina thaobh do dhéanamh.	That it is expedient that a Joint Committee consisting of seven members of the Dáil and seven members of the Seanad, with power to send for persons, papers, and records, be set up for the purpose of considering and making recommendations in regard to the Industrial and Commercial Property (Protection) Bill, 1925.

This is following out a discussion in the Dáil a few days ago with regard to sending this Bill to a proposed Joint Committee.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

I would like to suggest to the Minister on this motion that this special joint committee of the Dáil and Seanad should not sit until the autumn, and should not take any part of this Bill into consideration until then. In the meantime the Minister could make some special inquiries in regard to that section of the Bill dealing with copyright, as far as the United States of America are concerned. The position with regard to copyright, as it is covered by the Bill, does not vary very greatly from the position at the moment. The position now with regard to the United States, as the Minister is perfectly well aware, is a very unsatisfactory one. Attempts by Great Britain to put it on a more satisfactory basis have not succeeded. The Minister might legitimately and fairly say that where Great Britain has failed it is hardly likely that the Irish Free State will succeed. Nevertheless, I think it would be worth while to make the attempt. The United States of America is the only country that is not a subscriber to the Convention. Anyone who has had any experience of copyright in America—and I have had as fairly extensive an experience as most people during the last fifteen or sixteen years, not only in my own particular case, but in the case of firms for which I have acted, and I know something in regard to questions of copyright—knows that although individual firms and publishers there, often and generally do act on the whole very fairly in regard to copyright, there are firms who make it their business to pirate editions. There are, I know, Irish authors whose works have been pirated there. It is a complaint of very old standing, and I would like that at least we should make an effort —I do not say that it will be successful—now that we are passing our own Copyright Bill, to see if something could not be done to put books published in the Free State on a fairer basis for the future. That is why I suggest that consideration of the Bill in Committee might be postponed until the autumn and the interim might be spent by the Minister in instructing the Minister-Plenipotentiary of the Irish Free State at Washington to see if, in regard to books published in this country, parallel copyrights might not be obtained in the United States as is conferred at the moment, and would be conferred under this Bill in every other country.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

It has been my own idea that the Committee should not sit until the autumn, other than for a formal sitting. That is to say, I think that No. 2 motion ought to pass to-day; there would, I presume, then be an order made that a Message be sent to the Seanad acquainting them with what has happened and requesting their concurrence. After that we should proceed to elect, by whatever method of selection would be adopted, the seven members to represent the Dáil. They, I presume, would then meet the seven members of the Seanad and have one formal meeting at which they would set out the course of their proceedings in the autumn, not before the autumn session, and having got together for the first time they could then formulate certain questions which they thought would be worthy of investigation in the interim.

The question of the American system of copyright was examined at great length before the present Bill was introduced, and my best advice on the matter was that the American people were so dissatisfied with their present copyright position that they had determined that they were going to fall into line with or become adherents of that of other countries. Deputy Figgis is rather arguing the other way; he would rather have a certain amount of legalised pirating here because it exists in America. That is not a thing to which we could accede.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

Is the Minister aware that the people in America have been stating that that is their desire and have been stating it pretty consistently for about twelve years?

Motion put and agreed to.