Page:The copyright act, 1911, annotated.djvu/58

 46

��Copyright Act, 1911.

��§3-

' ' Except as otherwise expressly provided."

��Proviso.

��The following- are the special provisions contained in the Act: —

(1) Works of joint authors — lifty j'ears after death of author who dies first, or life of longest liver, ■whichever period is the longer {Qj ;

(2y Any literary, dramatic or musical work, or any engraving not published or performed in public in the lifetime of the author — until publication or i^erformanoe in jDublic, and fifty years there- after (/i);

(3^. PhotograjDhs (i), records, perforated rolls, itc. k, — ■ fifty 3"ears from making the negative or plate;

(4) Government jjublications, the coj^yright in which has, in default of agreement with the author, vested in the Crown (? — fift}^ j'ears from the date of first publication.

As originally introduced, the Copyright Bill contained a very complicated clause, under which' it was proposed that any person should, after the death of the author of a work which had been published or publicly performed, have the right to present a jDctitiou to the Comptroller- Ceneral of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, and obtain an order for a compulsory licence to print or perform the work upon satisfying the Comptroller that, by reason of the excessive price charged for copies of the Avork, or for the right to perform the work in public, or in an}^ other way, the work was withheld from the public, and the reasonable requirements of the public Avere not met.

The compulsory licence clause met with so much opposi- tion, that when the Bill went into Committee in the House of Commons, the wdiolc clause was dropped, and in lieu thereof the Committee substituted this j^i'oviso and the present sect. 4.

The proviso represents a compromise betweim those w\\o demanded the full term of life and fifty years, and those who desired to shorten, or at least not to extend the present period of copyright. Absolute monopoly will be enjoyed for twenty-five years after the author's death. Where

��(.9) Sect. 16 (1). (!) Sect. 21.

��(/) Sect. 18.

��(A) Sect. 17. (/.•) Sect. 19 (1).

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