the author thereof has sold or otherwise conveyed the same. The remedy is action in the High Court for: (i) Forfeiture of copies. (ii) One penny per copy; half to the Crown and half to informer. A condition precedent of protection under this Act is the giving of notice in writing to two justices living within five miles from the place where such lecture or lectures are delivered, two days at least before delivering the same. The Act has fallen into entire desuetude, partly, no doubt, on account of this somewhat troublesome stipulation as to notice, but principally because a lecturer has, in fact, full protection at common law, if, as is usually the case, he can make out an implied contract between himself and his audience that the delivery of the lecture is for purposes of instruction only, and that those present are entitled to make no other use of it whatsoever.1 His remedy at common law will be for damages and injunction. Of course he cannot sue for penalties, unless he has brought himself within the Act.

The Lectures Act does not apply so as to protect any lecture or lectures delivered in any university, or public school or college, or on any public foundation, or by any individual in virtue of, or according to, any gift, endowment, or foundation.2 The law relating to such lectures is declared to be the same as if the Lectures Act had not been passed. The result of this proviso is that these special kinds of lectures are nearly always protected at common law by implied contract in the same way as other lectures.3

1 Caird v. Sime (1887), 12 A. C., 326; Nicols v. Pitman (1884), 26 Ch. D., 374; Abernethy v. Hutchinson (1825), 3 L. J. Ch., 209.

2 5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 65, sec. 5.

3 Caird v. Sime (1887), 12 A. C., 326.

CHAPTER III

THE OWNER OF THE COPYRIGHT IN BOOKS

SECTION I.-THE CROWN.

WHEN the Crown ceased to have the complete control which it originally exercised over the printing-press, it still claimed to retain, as its prerogative, the exclusive right of printing such works as it considered its own peculiar property.1 These included the authorised translation of the Bible, the Common Prayer Book, Acts of Parliament and Proclamations, Latin Grammars and Year Books. Law books, such as "Rolle's Abridgment," and reports collected by the judges were also claimed by the Crown on the ground that the laws were the King's Laws. Classical books, almanacs and the like, were claimed by the Crown as bona nullius and things derelict. As regards those books which the Crown claimed as its own property, it granted licences and patents. The Stationers' Company, the King's printers, the Universities, and from time to time various individuals received grants of authority to print such works.

Many of the claims, for instance, to almanacs, law reports, Latin grammars, have for long been abandoned. The patentees of the Crown, however, still claim a prerogative copyright in

1. The Authorised English Translation of the Bible.*
2. The Book of Common Prayer.5

The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and the King's

1 See Millar v. Taylor (1769), 4 Burr., 2303, and cases there cited.

2 Baskett v. University of Cambridge (1758), 2 Burr. 661; Baskett v. Cunningham (1762), Black. Rep., 370.

3 See Grierson v. Jackson (1794), Ridg. Ir., T. R., 304; Nicol v. Stockdale (1785), 3 Swanst., 687.

♦ Universities v. Richardson (1802), 6 Ves., 689; Manners v. Blair (1828), 3 Bligh (N.S.), 391; Grierson v. Jackson (1794), Ridg. Ir., T. R., 304.

Universities v. Richardson (1802), 6 Ves., 689; Eyre v. Carnan (1781), 6 Bac. Abr., 509; Manners v. Blair (1828), 3 Bligh (N.S.), 391.

printers have each the right to print the Bible and the Prayer Book.

No objection has ever been taken on behalf of the Crown or her patentees to the printing of the Bible with notes, and this is in practice constantly done without authority. The notes, however, must be substantial and not merely illusory.1

In 1887 the Treasury published a Minute 2 in which the claims of the Crown to the exclusive right of publishing Government publications are set out. The Minute was published in the London Gazette.

The following publications are declared to be free from restriction of any kind, and any person may therefore publish them with or without notes:

1. Reports of Select Committees of the Two Houses of Parliament, or of Royal Commissions.

2. Papers required by Statute to be laid before Parliament,
e.g. Orders in Council, Rules made by Government
Departments, Accounts, Reports of Government
Inspectors.

3. Papers laid before Parliament by Command, e.g.
Treaties, Diplomatic Correspondence, Reports from
Consuls and Secretaries of Legation, Reports of In-
quiries into Explosions or Accidents, and other
Special Reports made to Government Departments.
4. Acts of Parliament.

5. Official books, e.g. King's Regulations for the Army or
Navy.

In the following works the Government claims to retain the copyright :

1. Literary or quasi-literary works, e.g. the Reports of the Challenger Expedition, the Rolls Publications, the State Trials, the "Board of Trade Journal."

2. Charts and Ordnance Maps.

The ancient prerogative claimed by the Crown was a perpetual copyright. The Crown is not mentioned in the Copyright Act, and it is open to doubt whether it could enforce a perpetual copyright in works compiled by its servants, or 2 See Appendix.

1 Baskett v. Cunningham (1762), Black. Rep., 370.

whether it could only claim the term of copyright granted by the Copyright Act.

SECTION II.-THE UNIVERSITIES.

By an Act of George III.1 provision is made for the vesting of copyrights in perpetuity in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Scottish Universities and the Colleges of Eton, Westminster, and Winchester. These privileges were obtained in consequence of the decision in Donaldson v. Beckett in the House of Lords to the effect that there was no perpetual copyright.

Perpetual Copyright under the Universities' Act attaches to those books which are "bequeathed or otherwise given" to one of the Universities or Colleges. A work such as The Revised Version of the Bible, which was compiled under the direction and at the expense of the two Universities, will probably not have perpetual copyright under the Act since it is neither bequeathed nor given. The same would apply to copyrights. purchased by a university or college.

The book in which University privilege is claimed must be registered within two months after the time when the bequest or gift of the copyright comes to the knowledge of the ViceChancellor of the University or head of the college, as the case may be.

The remedy against unauthorised printing or importing or knowingly selling, publishing, or exposing for sale any book in which there is University copyright is an action in the High Court for

(a) Forfeiture for destruction.

(b) One penny for every sheet found in the custody of the infringer, half to go to the Crown and half to the informer.

The perpetual privilege granted by the Act only subsists so long as the book is printed only within the respective Universities or Colleges, and for their sole benefit and advantage.

1 15 Geo. III. c. 53; 41 Geo. III. c. 107, extending the privilege to Dublin; 5 & 6 Vict. c. 45, sec. 27.

2 (1774), 2 Bro. P. C., 129.

This does not debar them from selling the copyright, but if sold it will only subsist for the term granted to authors by the Copyright Act, 1842.

Quære if some of Jowett's works, for instance, were printed in the United States in order to acquire American copyright, whether that would destroy the perpetual copyright by reason of copies being printed outside the University.

SECTION III.-THE AUTHOR.

Copyright in every book published in the lifetime of the author thereof "shall be the property of such author and his assigns." Copyright therefore in the first instance ordinarily vests in the author. The word author is not defined in the Act, and from time to time difficult questions have arisen as to who is the author of a particular book within the meaning of the Act. Difficulties have generally arisen from the fact that two or more people have been engaged in the production of a book. The rule appears to be that, if the literary matter is composed by those who make the manuscript, the author is the man from whom emanates the general conception and design, and that although much of the detail may have been the work of subordinate brains and hands, he is the author of the entirety, and may sue for any infringement of it. Thus in Scott v. Stanford, where the plaintiff compiled and published periodically statistical returns of the London coal market, Page Wood, V.C., in giving judgment, said that it appeared to him quite immaterial whether the plaintiff had been assisted in the compilation by his own clerks or by those of the Corporation. In Barfield v. Nicholson a case under the statute of Anne, Leach, V.C., said that he was of opinion that under the statute the one who formed the plan and embarked on the speculation of a work, and employed various persons to compose different parts of it adapted to their own peculiar acquirements, was the author and

1 5 & 6 Vict. c. 45, sec. 3.

2 This reservation is made necessary by the decision in Walter v. Lane [1900], A. C., 539, that the author is not necessarily the composer of the literary matter; see infra, p. 65.

3 (1867), L. R., 3 Eq., 718; see also Nottage v. Jackson (1883), 11 Q. B. D., 627; Stannard v. Harrison (1871), 24 L. T. (N.S.), 570.

(1824), 2 L. J. Ch., 90, at p. 102; and see Maclean v. Moody (1858), 20 D., 1154.