Page:The copyright act, 1911, annotated.djvu/134

 122

��Copyright Act, i!>ii.

��§17.

��protected under this section.

��Meaning and effect of sub -sect. (2).

��ings, &c., whether published or unpublished, cease* on the expiration of fifty jea.Ts after the author's death, and that all copyright in j^hotographs. Avhethor published or unpublished, ceases fifty years after the making of the negative. As the common law right in unpublished works is abrogated, unpublished drawings, paintings and photo- graphs, whatever their subject-matter may be, receive no protection after the expiration of the copyright, except that it may still be competent to restrain publication on the ground of breach of confidence or trust.

The existing law with regard to the ownership of the copyright in works posthumously published, is that the copyright sliall belong to the proprietor of the author's manuscript (e). This was held, in the case of Charles Lamb's letters, to mean that the owner of the documents for the time being had an inchoate copyright, which would vest in him or his assigns upon publication (/). Under the new Act the copyright, whether in letters or other " authors' manuscripts,'" will remain the property of the author, and pass from him to his personal representatives, unless there has been an assignment of the coj)yright in writing. It will be observed that sub-sect. (2) only applies when the manuscript is the property of the author at the date of his death. Letters, therefore, will not fall within its operation, unless the writer has kept copies. .Where the author is the owner of a manuscript at the date of his death, and it passes under his testamentary dis- position either to a specific or residuary legatee, there is a presumption that such legatee is also the owner of the copyright. It would have been much more satisfac- tory if the Act had provided that any bequest of the manuscript should be deemed to pass the ownership of the copyright: and the question is whether that, in effect, is the meaning of the sub-section, or whether, on the other hand, it may be said, where there is a specific bequest of a manuscript to A., and B. is made residuary legatee, that B. in fact takes the copyright- and that A.'s prima fame proof of title by showing the bequest to him can be rebutted by B. proving that he is residuary legatee. If this latter view is right, the sub-section is reduced to an absurdity: and it is submitted that, on the whole, it would be permissible to strain the literal meaning of the

��(r) Copvrieht Act. 1842 ,5 & 6 Vict. c. 45^ (/ Macmi/la)i v. Bent, [1907] 1 Ch. 107.

�� �