LITERARY

Pertaining to polite learning; connected with the study or use of books and writings. The word “literary,” having no legal signification, is to be taken in its ordinary and usual meaning. We speak of literary persons as learned, erudite; of literary property, as the productions of ripe scholars, or, at least, of professional writers; of literary institutions, as those where the positive sciences are taught or persons eminent for learning associate, for purposes connected with their professions. This we think the popular meaning of the word; and that it would not be properly used as descriptive a school for the instruction of youth. Indianapolis v. McLean, 8 Ind. 332. Literary composition. In copyright law. An original result of mental production, developed in a series of written or printed words, arranged for an intelligent purpose, in an orderly succession of expressive combinations. Keene v. Wheatley, 14 Fed. Cas. 192-; Wool sey v. Judd, 4 Duer (N. Y.) 396. Literary property may be described as the right which entitles an author and his assigns to all the use and profit of his composition, to which no independent right is, through any act or omission on his or their part, vested in another person. “9 Amer. Law Reg. 44.. And see Keene v. Wheatley, 14 Fed. Cas. 192; Palmer v. De Witt, 32 N. Y. Super. Ct. 552. A distinction is to he taken between “literary property” (which is the natural, common law right which a person has in the form of written expression to which he has, by labor and skill, reduced his thoughts) and “copyright,” (which, is a statutory monopoly, above and beyond natural property, conferred upon an author to encourage and reward a dedication of his literary property to the public.) Abbott.