Publisher Starts Contempt Proceeding Against College Tutoring Bureau for Continuing Copyright Violations

Acting to reinforce an injunction obtained in 1933 against the College Tutoring Bureau for copyright violations, attorneys for the MacMillan Company, publishers, in a motion filed yesterday asked the U. S. District Court of Massachusetts to hold the Bureau's proprietors, Joseph H. Hurvitz and Abraham Segel, in contempt of Court.

Largest of the Harvard Square dealers in tutoring notes, the College Tutoring Bureau with its now defunct affiliate, University Tutors, supplied 38 percent of all notes sold last year.

The court order which the publishing company claims is being violated by Hurvitz and Segel was issued May 24, 1933 by District Judge Elisha H. Brewster in answer to complaints by four publishing houses that their books were being pirated in the notes and outlines issued by the Bureau.

Before the final decree was granted, a U. S. Marshal, acting on a court order, raided the College Tutoring Bureau and seized 800 illegal outlines, which were carted away into Boston in two taxis and later burned.

Must "Show Cause"

In a motion filed with the clerk of the Federal Court in Boston yesterday, the MacMillan Company asked the Court to order Hurvitz and Segel to "show cause why they and each of them should not be punished for contempt of this Court" for violating the 1933 decree.

The decree was obtained by the MacMillan Company in conjunction with Houghton, Mifflin Company, Ginn and Company, and Harper and Brothers for pirating sections of books, most of which were written by Harvard professors.

Publishers Win $1000

Damages totaling $1,000 were awarded to the four publishing firms, and the tutoring bureau was ordered to refrain from future violations of the copyright on these books.

Yesterday's action legally was merely a further step in the old case. If Hurvitz and Segel are found guilty of contempt of court, they may receive a heavy penalty, either a fine or a prison sentence.

Preliminary hearings have been set for 2 o'clock Monday, when attorneys for the MacMillan Company. Robert R. Thurber and Henry L. Mason, Jr., will formally present their motion. Another hearing will then be scheduled for a week or so later when both the publishing firm and the College Tutoring Bureau will present their arguments.

Notes Are "Supplements"

In answer to the publishers' charges in 1933. Segel stated that "our outlines have been prepared solely to be used as a supplement to the books prescribed in a course rather than as a substitute for them."

Filing an affidavit as evidence in the final hearing, Dean Hanford attacked the notes sold by the College Tutoring Bureau for "affecting unfavorably the standards and morale of the undergraduates.

"It has also been our experience that the use of these abridgments encourages a certain type of student to even more questionable methods of passing the examinations." Dean Hanford said.

The first of the legal battles with the Harvard Square cram parlors began in 1921 when President Lowell and the MacMillan Company successfully prosecuted a case against William S. Deak for pirating certain sections of President Lowell's book on "The Government of England." Deak retired from business without fight