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377

XXIII

On the right to the performance of published
stage plays


      Although our Statute Book was one of the first legislative
codes to prohibit reprinting, and even to make it liable to
punishment, it can nevertheless not be denied that the book trade
and the means whereby thoughts can be reproduced have expanded so
much and acquired so many new nuances since the adoption of the
Statute Book that our legislation seems not just incomplete in
this respect, but also becomes entangled in irresolvable
contradictions. At a later point we will undertake a revision
of this whole section. Here, though, we will just attempt to
deal with a topic which is analogous to reprinting. However, what
makes this and similar subjects rather complicated is the way
in which a Prussian law would necessarily have to relate to the
legislation for all the German states. Now, it is a known fact
that in the sixteen years of its existence so far the Federal
Diet has not managed to bring about a general law against reprinting;
that the intellectual property of the German nation has been
left without protection and security by this institution, and
has thus had to take shelter behind humiliating privileges, the
application procedures and procurement of which effectively
make such theft seem a right to which everyone is entitled.
It is probably good old German thoroughness and the desire