Penny v. Walker. We find no case in which the precise question here presented has been raised. But it was held in the case of the U. S. v. Hart, Peters' C. C. R. 390, that the act was not to be so construed as to prevent the arrest of the driver of a carriage in which the mail is conveyed when he is driving through a crowded city at such a rate as to endanger the lives of the inhabitants; i. e., when he was proceeding at a greater rate of speed than the framers of a city ordinance deemed consistent with safety. And it was the opinion of the attorney-general (5 Opin. 554) that it could not be held to conflict with a municipal ordinance prohibiting the passage of railroad cars through the limits of a city at a greater speed than six miles an hour. If the progress of the mail may be lawfully arrested or retarded in conformity with municipal ordinances of this description, it is not easy to see why such incidental interruption as may arise from the occasional arrest of a mail driver for the violation of other laws designed to restrain evils pernicious to the public welfare, should not also be tolerated. The safe carriage and prompt delivery of the mails are matters which mainly concern the inhabitants of the communities among whom they are distributed. No needless interference with them can be allowed; but the public interest 18, to say the least, quite as great in the preservation of Bobriety and good order. We think it would be a greater evil to hold the carriers of the mail a class privileged to resist the criminal process of the State in the hands of officers duly qualified, than it would be to incur the risk of the brief and infrequent detention of the mail when its carriers are found liable to arrest for criminal offenses. This defendant claims to intrench himself behind such supposed privilege in order to establish a defense to a suit, which of itself imports a breach of the peace on his part, although the charge upon which the plaintiff arrested him was not of that character. We think such a claim cannot be allowed. It is not readily perceived how the mail carrier could be held liable to the penalty for quitting or deserting the mail in his charge, by yielding that implicit submission to legal process which the law requires of all citizens, unless it were because his own criminal Penny v. Walker. misconduct had made him liable to such process. He n.ast see to it that he places himself in no such dilemma. The penalty imposed by the act upon those who knowingly and willfully obstruct or retard the mail must be ample protection if he were harassed with malicious prosecutions for trifling offenses, such as the counsel suggests as likely to multiply if he is held liable to arrest for any thing short of felony. The few cases in which questions bearing any analogy to that now presented have been discussed, have been almost exclusively cases of indictments under the last-named provision. We know of none where the indictment has been sustained for an arrest on criminal process. In U. S. v. Kirby, 7 Wall. 482, the right of the State officer to arrest upon a charge of felony is emphatically sustained. The line of reasoning in that opinion would apply equally well in all cases of criminal offenses affecting the public welfare. The only reasonable distinction which can be made seems to be between arrests upon civil and criminal process. To enforce merely private rights, the detention of the mail by an officer seems to have been held unwarrantable in U. S. v. Harvey, 8 Law Rep. 77. Just here we think the line should be drawn. The mail carrier must not be detained upon any civil suit or claim for debt or damage, while in the discharge of his duty to the public, but we think he is legally liable to arrest on a charge of any criminal offense; and this was precisely the ruling which is the subject of complaint. APPLETON, C. J., WALTON, DICKERSON, VIRGIN and PETERS, JJ., concurred. Exceptions overruled. Carter v. Bailey. CARTER V. BAILEY. (64 Me. 458.) Copyright-rights of owners in common. One owner in common of a copyright who, at his sole expense, has printed, pablished and sold the book copyrighted, is not liable in the absence of an agreement inter sese to account to his co-owner. Where an owner in common of personal property which is in its nature inseverable, such as the stereotype plates of a book, has possession thereof and appropriates it only to the use it is designed for, he may maintain such possession and prosecute such use without laying himself under obligation to pay or account therefor, unless he takes more than his share of the rents and income without the consent of his co-owners. BILL in equity by Ezra Carter against Frederic W. Bailey and others to compel an accounting and payment by defendants of such sums as might be found due to plaintiff. The facts as set forth in the bill were substantially as follows: In 1860 complainant and one Sanborn were copartners in the book business and owned together the copyright and stereotype plates of several books. The copartnership was dissolved, each party agreeing that the property of the firm, including the plates and copyrights, should belong to them "as individuals, co-owners, co-tenants and tenants in common." Between 1865 and 1867 Sanborn fraudulently sold to defendants, who knew about the agreement of dissolution, all the stereotype plates and leased and demised to them the copyrights. In 1868 the assignee in bankruptcy of Sanborn sold to defendants his interest in the copyrights. While in possession of the plates defendants printed and sold large quantities of the copyright books and kept exclusive possession of the plates. Plaintiff, claiming an amount due him on account of the copyrights and plates, repeatedly asked for a settlement, which was refused. Such other facts as are material appear in the opinion. Defendants demurred to this bill. A. Merrill, for complainant. S. C. Strout and H. W. Gage, for defendants. Carter v. Bailey. VIRGIN, J. This case comes before us on demurrer to the bill. The plaintiff alleges substantially that he and the defendants are tenants in common in the proportions stated of the copyrights of certain school books described by their respective titles; that since August, 1865, the defendants, without his consent, have printed, published and sold large specified numbers of the books, at a certain net profit; that he is equitably entitled to a share of the profits proportioned to the extent of his undivided interest; and he prays that the defendants be decreed to account to him for the same with equitable interest. The question presented is, whether one owner in common of a copyright, who, at his sole expense, has printed, published and sold the book copyrighted, is liable, in the absence of any agreement inter sese, to account to his co-owner. We are not aware that this precise question has ever been decided. The doctrine that an author has a right of property in his ideas, and is entitled to demand for them the same perpetual protection which the law accords to the proprietor of personal property generally, finds no recognition either in the common law or in the statutes of any civilized country. When he has embodied his thoughts in manuscript, the latter is his exclusive property, having the characteristics of transfer and succession common to personal property. Being his property, the author may exercise full dominion over it. He may publish it to the world or not, at his option. Bartlett v. Crittenden, 5 McLean, 36; Little v. Hall, 16 How. 170; Palmer v. De Witt, 47 N. Y. 532. If he publishes his book, he ceases to have any exclusive claim to the ideas or sentiments thereon expressed, considered apart from the language or the outward semblance in which they are conveyed; for he can no longer exclusively appropriate the thoughts which have entered into the understandings of other persons through publication, or prevent the unlimited use of every advantage which the purchaser can reap from the doctrine or sentiments which the work contains. Miller v. Taylor, 4 Burr. 2362; Stowe v. Thomas, 5 Wall., Jr., 564; Greene v. Bishop, 1 Cliff. 198. The public are interested in the development and promulgation of all new, wholesome ideas, and in new combinations and illustra tions of old ones; and the most efficient mode of promulgating them is that afforded by the press. Without publication and some Carter v. Bailey. exclusive right thereto, the products of authors would prove comparatively profitless. The public, then, for the addition to its general stock of knowledge, and the author, in consideration of the pecuniary profit derivable therefrom, are jointly interested in the publication of new works. The framers of the United States Constitution, recognizing the importance of establishing a just policy in relation to this and its kindred subjects, empowered congress "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Art. 1, Sec. VIII, cl. 8. Congress forthwith enacted statutes for carrying into execution this power. These statutes were not regarded as regulations of existing common-law rights (Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Pet. 591; Jefferies v. Boosey, 4 H. L. Cas. 815); but the "exclusive right to their respective writings for limited times" was thereby created and conferred upon authors as a compensation for their contributions to the promotion of general knowledge. The impracticability of fixing any specific price for their respective contributions was avoided by leaving the sum to be graduated by the ad valorem favor which the public should mete out to the author by way of demand for his production. 66 The right created and granted to authors by the Federal statutes "respecting copyrights," is sui generis; consisting, as its name indicates, in the "sole right" of the "author or authors," "their executors, administrators or legal assigns" resident in the United States, to print, reprint, publish and vend their productions, for the term specified. 4 U. S. Stats. 436, ch. 16, § 1, in force when the copyrights in question were secured. It is an incorporeal right, resting entirely in the reasonable interpretation of the terms of the grant; and so disconnected from, and independent of any material substance such as manuscript or plate, that a sale of either or both of these will not necessarily carry with it any right on the part of the purchaser thereof to make copies of the original work, the right to copy or the "copyright" still remaining in the author, his legal representative or assignee, a distinct, well-defined, though intangible legal estate. Stevenson v. Cady, 14 How. 530; Stevens V. Gladding, 17 id. 447. The statute evidently contemplates that the copyright may be secured in the name of the author; or, if he have legally assigned his right, the assignee may avail himself of the provisions of the |