Page:The copyright act, 1911, annotated.djvu/23

 the originator of the idea an author, even although the actual composer is his employee. In the case of photographs, records, perforated rolls and other contrivances by means of which a work may be mechanically performed or delivered, the Act sets up an arbitrary test of authorship by providing that the author shall be deemed to be the person who was the owner of the original negative or matrix at the time it was made.

Joint authorship is now defined as a work produced by the collaboration of two or more authors, in which the contribution of one is not distinct from the contribution of the other author or authors. This is probably merely a declaration of the existing law. There must be joint labour in the prosecution of a preconcerted joint design. From joint authorship there must be excluded, on the one hand, cases of the kind referred to in the last paragraph, where the whole work is the conception of one brain, and the work done by others is merely that of subordinate detail, and on the other hand, cases where the contribution of the different contributors is distinct.

(2) For the purposes of this Act, "copyright" means the sole right to produce or reproduce the work or any substantial part thereof in any material form whatsoever, to perform , or in the case of a lecture to deliver , the work or any substantial part thereof in public; if the work is unpublished , to publish the work or any substantial part thereof; and shall include the sole right,—

(a) to produce, reproduce, perform, or publish any translation of the work;