The June 25, 1907 NYT reports the following mind-boggling story:

The snapshot photographer in Germany is threatened with exinction after July 1, owing to the great risk he will run of being mulcted in heavy fines under the new act which goes into force on that date. The right of all persons to the exclusive reproduction of their own portraits or pictures of their houses or belongings is by the new enactment made obsolete.

The law permits the granting of permission by any one to a photographer to take his photograph or that of his landscape or of his cattle or horses, but there is danger for the amateur or professional who snapshots some one or something without previously arming himself with the necessary authorization. Prosecution and punishment may quickly follow.

Even when requested by a friend to take a photograph of a room with its contents, which the owner may desire to use as a picture postcard, the danger is still great for the room may contain pictures, and if these are recognizable in the photograph the photographer is liable to prosecution by the artist.

This artist-rent-protection law is similar to a law that was being debated during this time in France, which the NYT had reported on earlier in the week. The French were considering taxing the "classics" of literature, i.e., the books written by dead writers, in order to ensure a greater income for living authors.

In a bizarre argument that sounded like something out of Atlas Shrugged, it was suggested that the writers of the "classics" were, after all, dead, and it wasn't fair that the new, living, writers had to compete with them. The article describing this French law mentioned that the idea had snuck across the Channel and that the British were in the early stages of discussing a similar law.

Amazing. Yet another reminder that our contemporaneous politicians do not have a monopoly on bad ideas.