The Confused
History of "Desiderata"
The author of Desiderata
is Max Ehrmann, a poet and lawyer from Terre Haute, Indiana, who
lived from 1872 to 1945. It has been reported that Desiderata
was inspired by an urge that Ehrmann wrote about in his diary:
"I should
like, if I could, to leave a humble gift -- a bit of chaste prose
that had caught up some noble moods."
Around 1959, the
Rev. Frederick Kates, the rector of St. Paul's Church in
Baltimore, Maryland, used the poem in a collection of devotional
materials he compiled for his congregation. (Some years earlier he
had come across a copy of Desiderata.) At the top of the
handout was the notation, "Old St. Paul's Church, Baltimore
A.C. 1692." The church was founded in 1692. [1]
As the material was
handed from one friend to another, the authorship became clouded.
Copies with the "Old St. Paul's Church" notation were
printed and distributed liberally in the years that followed. It
is perhaps understandable that a later publisher would interpret
this notation as meaning that the poem itself was found in Old St.
Paul's Church, dated 1692. This notation no doubt added to the
charm and historic appeal of the poem, despite the fact that the
actual language in the poem suggests a more modern origin. The
poem was popular prose for the "make peace, not war"
movement of the 1960s.
When Adlai Stevenson
died in 1965, a guest in his home found a copy of Desiderata
near his bedside and discovered that Stevenson had planned to use
it in his Christmas cards. The publicity that followed gave
widespread fame to the poem as well as the mistaken relationship
to St. Paul's Church. [1]
As of 1977, the
rector of St. Paul's Church was not amused by the confusion.
Having dealt with the confusion "40 times a week for 15 years,"
he was sick of it. [1]
This
misinterpretation has only added to the confusion concerning
whether or not the poem is in the public domain.
By the way, Desiderata
is Latin for "Things to be Desired."
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Is Desiderata
in the Public Domain or Copyrighted?
Max Ehrmann obtained
a federal copyright for Desiderata in 1927 (No. 962402).
[2] It was also printed in a collection of his poems published in
1948. The copyright was bequeathed to his widow, Bertha, who
renewed the copyright in 1954. At her death in 1962, she
bequeathed the copyright to her nephew, Richmond Wight. Wight
assigned the copyright (for an undisclosed fee) to Crescendo
Publishing Co. in 1971.
The poem was
published in the August, 1971 issue of Success Unlimited
magazine, and Robert L. Bell, the owner of Crescendo Publishing
Co., filed a copyright infringement suit against the publisher,
Combined Registry Co. [3]
The defense argued
that the copyright had been forfeited and abandoned. Three
instances of distribution were alleged to support forfeiture:
(1) In December
1933, Ehrmann used Desiderata as part of a Christmas
greeting to his friends.
(2) In 1942, Ehrmann
corresponded with Merrill Moore, a U.S. Army psychiatrist serving
during World War II. Moore told Ehrmann that he had distributed an
estimated 1,000 copies of Desiderata over the years while he was
in civilian practice in Boston . Letters attest to the fact that
Ehrmann gave permission for Moore to distribute copies of the poem
to soldiers as part of their treatment. As late as 1944, Moore
confirmed to Ehrmann that he continued to use the poem in his work
in the South Pacific. [3]
After Ehrmann's
death in 1945, reports of his correspondence with Moore appeared
in several publications, each of which included the text of Desiderata
without a copyright notice.
(3) As noted above,
about 200 copies of Desiderata were distributed by Rev.
Kates to his congregation around 1959. (The court stated that this
occurred in 1957, but most other accounts report that it happened
in 1959.)
The Copyright Act
requires copyright notice on materials that one seeks to have
protected. [17 U.S.C. Section 10] Forfeiture occurs when the
copyright holder authorizes general publication without the
correct notice.
The 1933 Christmas
cards were not a "general publication" that would
divest the copyright holder of his rights. Nor did the
distribution by Rev. Kates or the later copies, since there was no
evidence of authorization by the copyright holder.
However, the
correspondence between Moore and Ehrmann was credible evidence of
a general publication authorized by the copyright holder. "Permission
to use the work was given gratuitously," and nowhere was a
copyright or copyright notice mentioned. Ehrmann had therefore
forfeited his right to have the copyright protected. [2]
The federal district
court found in favor of the defendants, the 7th Circuit Court of
Appeals affirmed that decision, and the U.S. Supreme Court
declined to hear the case. [See citations below] However, Mr. Bell
has been successful in pursuing his copyright claim in other
jurisdictions of the United States. Thus, whether or not this poem
is in the public domain depends upon your point of view and
your place of residence. |