This appeal was speedily responded to; the statute of Anne was passed, the first of a long series of enactments destined to puzzle the Bench, to give employment to the Bar, and to exasperate litigants. Subject to certain conditions designed to protect the public from the possible rapacity of authors and publishers, the Act gave a copyright term of 21 years from publication.

Strangely enough more than half a century elapsed before the lawyers discovered the inexhaustible possibilities of litigation opened up by the Act. For 57 years it was assumed that a perpetual copyright in published works had always existed, and still existed in addition to the statutory right. Consequently, when the statutory term ran out it was the practice of the judges to grant an injunction under the common law for the further protection of the owners of copyright. But in the great case of Thomson's Seasons (Millar v. Taylor, 1766) it was eventually held by six judges to five that the statutory term was in substitution for and not in addition to any common law right that may previously have existed, and it would now seem to be the better opinion that no common law copyright exists in a published work even during the currency of the statutory term of copyright, and, therefore, every statutory requirement must be fulfilled before any copyright attaches.

The trouble in construing the statute of Anne arising from the failure of the draftsman to take the common law into consideration did not prevent the Victorian draftsman from falling into the same error. With regard to the Act of 1842, which still holds the field as the principal Act now regulating copyright, it is a moot point whether it does or does not take away the common law right previously subsisting of a dramatic author to prevent, without any limit of time, the publication of a play acted in public but not printed. And in the Act of 1862, the first to give fine

art copyright, the draftsman created some trouble by reciting in the preamble that authors of paintings and other works of fine art "had no copyright," oblivious of the common law right forbidding the publication or copying of unpublished pictures or drawings.

When we remember that Parliament has passed 47 copyright Acts, of which 19 are now wholly or partially in force, and that a good deal of this mass of legislation is of a piece with the specimens that have been alluded to, the subject, it will readily be seen, is one urgently demanding attention.

Various attempts have been made during the last 20 years to give effect to some of the recommendations of the Royal Commission, but with the exception of two Acts dealing with musical copyright, the second of which was passed to correct a monstrous blunder in the first, and an international Act necessitated by the Convention of Berne, absolutely no change in the law has been effected.

Putting aside the recommendations as to international copyright, which have been more than carried into effect by that Convention, and colonial copyright on which I do not propose to enter, the principal alterations of the law insisted upon by the Commissioners may be summarised as follows:- :

The life of the author and 30 years after his death, was substituted in the case of literary stageright and musical copyright for the present term of 42 years from publication, or the life of the author and seven years after his death, whichever term should be the longer.

In the case of sculpture the same term of life and 30 years is substituted for the present term of 14 years, followed should the sculptor be alive at the end of it, by another term of 14 years.

In the case of paintings and drawings the same term of life and 30 years, and in the case of photographs a term of 30 years is substituted for the present term, applicable alike

to paintings, drawings and photographs, of life and seven

years.

In the case of prints and engravings 30 years is substituted for the present term of 28 years.

In the case of magazine articles three years is substituted for 28 as the period during which separate publication by the author is prohibited. The term of life and 30 years for literary copyright is the same as that obtaining in Germany, and shorter than that in force in any other European country except Greece, Holland, and Belgium. The Commissioners preferred a term ending at a fixed period after the death of the authors rather than from publication, on two grounds. First, because the date of an author's death is more easily ascertainable than the date of publication, and, secondly, because under the latter system earlier and probably inferior works enjoy longer copyright than the more mature examples of an author's genius.

A majority of the Commissioners reported in favour of making abridgments a breach of copyright. Sir James Stephen, however, disagreed on the ground that the question of whether any given abridgment is substantially an original work or not was capable of being determined by a court of law in a more or less satisfactory way, and that any statutory rule on the subject was likely to lead to great practical difficulties, and would be liable to evasion.

The Commission recommended, with a saving of existing rights, that the special perpetual copyright vested in the principal universities and some of the schools should be abolished.

As to dramatic and musical copyright the Commissioners reported that they had carefully considered the statute law, but from the way in which certain Acts of Parliament had been framed and incorporated by reference, considerable doubt arose in their minds on various important points. connected with those subjects.

They recommended that the present law, which they understood to permit a dramatic piece or a musical composition to be publicly represented without the consent of the author, should be repealed, and that the printed publication of such works should give dramatic or performing rights, and that the public performance should give literary copyright. Also that the author of the words of songs as distinguished from the music should have no copyright in representation or publication with the music except by special agreement.

The Commissioners next considered the burning question of the dramatisation of novels, which has lately come very much to the front. Some conundrums in connection with this subject have been solved in court by Her Majesty's judges, others no less interesting and perplexing remain unsolved.

It seems to be fairly well-established that the dramatisation of a novel is not an infringement of copyright unless the author of the novel has previously published it in the form of a drama; but as it has been also held that though a drama taken from a copyright novel may be written and acted, it cannot lawfully be printed, and as the Lord Chamberlain requires a printed copy before the play can lawfully be performed, there are considerable practical difficulties to be faced by the piratical playwright.

It has been suggested that he might buy a few copies of the novel and construct a print of his play with the aid of scissors and paste-but he would have to stick very closely to the text.

The Commissioners recommend that the right of dramatising a novel or other work should be reserved to the author. "This change," they observed, "would assimilate our law to that of France and the United States, where the author's right in this respect is fully protected."

They add, "we are disposed to think that the right of dramatisation should be co-extensive with the copyright. It has been suggested in the interest of the public that a term, say of three or four years, or even more, should be allowed to the author within which he should have the sole right to dramatise his novel, and that it should then be open to anyone to dramatise it. The benefit, however, to the public in having a story represented on the stage does not appear to us to be sufficient to outweigh the convenience of making the right of dramatising uniform in its incidents with other copyright." As to lectures, the Commissioners say, "The present Act of Parliament, which gives copyright in lectures, seems only to contemplate one kind of copyright, namely, that of printed publication, whereas it is obvious that for their entire protection, lectures require copyright of two kinds, the one to protect them from printed publication by unauthorised persons, the other to protect them from re-delivery of a lecture without leave as well as publication by printing, though this prohibition to re-delivery should not extend to lectures that have been printed and published. We also recommend that the term of copyright in lectures should be the same as in books, namely, the life of the author and 30 years after his death. The author should be presumed to give permission to newspaper proprietors to take notes and report his lecture, unless before or at the time when the lecture is delivered he gives notice that he prohibits reporting. We do not suggest any interference with the exception made in the Act as to lectures delivered in Universities and elsewhere wherein no statutory copyright can be acquired" (sects. 82-5 and 87).

As to sculpture, Sir James Stephen confesses that he is fairly puzzled in the attempt to interpret the statute (54 Geo. III., 56). One section he observes "is a miracle of intricacy and verbosity. It also contains an 'of' which