Page:Eastern Book Company & Ors vs D.B. Modak & Anr.pdf/43

http://JUDIS.NIC.IN the report within the meaning of the Copyright Act, 1842, and is entitled to the copyright in the report. The House of Lords held that each reporter is entitled to report and each undoubtedly would have a copyright in his own published report. It was of course open to any other reporter to compose his own report of Lord Rosebery’s speech, and to any other newspaper and book to publish that report; but it is a sound principle that a man shall not avail himself of another’s skill, labour and expense by copying the written product thereof; and copyright has nothing to do with the originality or the literary merits of the author or composer. It may exist in the information given by a street dictionary. If a person chooses to compose and write a volume devoid of the faintest spark of literary or any other merit, there is no legal reason why he should not, if he desires, become the first publisher of it and register his copyright, worthless and insignificant as it would be.

19. In the case of Designers Guild Ltd. v. Russell Williams (Textiles) Ltd., [2000] 1 WLR 2416 (HL), the plaintiff brought proceedings claiming that the defendant had infringed the plaintiff’s copyright by copying one of its fabric designs, i.e. for the fabric design Ixia. The infringement of which the plaintiff complained was that for the purpose of creating its own design Marguerite by the defendant. The defendant had copied a substantial part of Ixia. There were mainly two main issues at the trial. First, what, if anything had the designer of Marguerite copied from Ixia. Secondly, did what had been copied amount to the “whole or a substantial part” of Ixia? It was said by the House of Lords that the law of copyright rests on a very clear principle that anyone who by his or her own skill and labour creates an original work of whatever character shall enjoy an exclusive right to copy that work. No one else may for a season reap what the copyright owner had sown.

20. University of London Press Limited v. University Tutorial Press Limited, [1916] 2 Ch 601, is perhaps the most cited judgment regarding originality. Originality was held to be not required to be noval form but the work should not be copied from other work, that is, it should be original. The judgment was based on the following facts: Certain persons were appointed as examiners for matriculation examination of the University of London on a condition that any copyright in the examination papers should belong to the University. The University assigned the copyright to the plaintiff company. After the examination, the defendant company brought out a publication containing a number of the examination papers, including three which had been set by two examiners appointed by the University. The plaintiff company brought a case of copyright infringement against the defendant company. It was argued that since the setting of the papers entailed the exercise of brainwork, memory, and trained judgment, and even the selection of passages from other author’s work involved careful consideration, discretion and choice they constituted original literary work. On the other and, the defendants claimed that what they had done was fair dealing for the purposes of private study which was permissible under the law. The court agreed that the material under consideration was a literary work. The words ‘literary work’ cover work which is expressed in print or writing, irrespective of the question whether the quality or style is high. The word 'literary’ seems to be used in a sense somewhat similar to the use of