Page:Copyright, Its History And Its Law (1912).djvu/567

 BRITISH COPYRIGHT ACT, 191 1 535

is specified in the first column of the First Schedule to this Act subsists at the commencement of this Act has, before that date, assigned the right or granted any interest therein for the whole term of the right, then at the date when, but for the passing of this Act, the right would have expired the substituted right conferred by this section shall, in the absence of ex- press agreement, pass to the author of the work, and any interest therein created before the commence- ment of this Act and then subsisting shall deter- mine; but the person who immediately before the date at which the right would so have expired was the owner of the right or interest shall be entitled at his option either —

(i) on giving such notice as hereinafter men- tioned, to an assignment of the right or the grant of a similar interest therein for the remainder of the term of the right for such consideration as, failing agreement, may be determined by arbitra- tion; or

(ii) without any such assignment or grant, to continue to reproduce or perform the work in like manner as theretofore subject to the payment, if demanded by the author within three years after the date at which the right would have so ex- pired, of such royalties to the author as, failing agreement, may be determined by arbitration, or, where the work is incorporated in a collective work and the owner of the right or interest is the proprietor of that collective work, without any such payment;

The notice above referred to must be given not more than one year nor less than six months before the date at which the right would have so expired, and must be sent by registered post to the author, or, if he cannot with reasonable diligence be found, advertised in the London Gazette and in two London newspapers: (&) where any person has, before the twenty-sixth day