Page:The copyright act, 1911, annotated.djvu/163

 Application to Beitish Possessions. 151

grants to British subjects and residents in the § 28. British dominions generally, rights " identi- cal with those conferred by the xVct." Such rights may be deemed identical notwithstand- ing that they differ as regards (a) nature of remedies, (b) restrictions on importation.

This provision as regards importation will, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State, enable a self-governing dominion to get rid of, or modify, sect. 14, in other Avords, to admit foreign reprints of books first pub- lished in the United Kingdom either with or without some provision for collecting royal- ties for the benefit of the author. On the other hand, a self-governing dominion may, while taking the full benefit of the Act in the United Kingdom, prohibit the importa- tion into the dominion of a,ny book not printed in the dominion, thus preventing the author in the United Kingdom from reaping any benefit from his copyright in the dominion .without going to the expense of reprinting his book there. These are the pos- sibilities of the clause. Its main object, no doubt, is to enable a self-governing colony to introduce legislation similar to the Fisher Act in Canada, under which it is provided that, if in the case of books first published in the British dominions outside Canada, a licence to reproduce the work in Canada has been granted, copies printed outside Canada shall not be imported without the written con- s.ent of the licensee.

It wall be observed that, in the case of the works ,of colonial authors and a licence being granted to a publisher in the United King- dom, that publisher gets no protection against the importation of the colonial edition (?>). (iii) It may treat with the United Kingdom for re- ciprocal protection in the same way as if it

��{b} Ante, p. 109.

�� �