Page:The copyright act, 1911, annotated.djvu/98

 86

��Copyright Act, 1911.

��c 7^ accruing under this section. After some difference of opinion, it

~ — '- was heki that the section applied even although the proprietor of

EXISTING LAW. ^^® Copyright was not registered at the date of the infringement (p). It is only necessary, therefore, that he should .be registered before the issue of the writ. It is doubtful whether the twelve months' limitation applies to such action, or whether the only limitation is six years from the date when the cause of action in conversion or detiniie arises {q).

��§8.

��Exemption of innocent infringer from liability to pay damages, &c.

��8. Where proceedings are taken in re.spect of the infringement (/•) of the copyright {s) in any work and the defendant in his defence alleges that he was not aware of the existence of the copyright in the work, the plaintiff shall not be entitled to any remedy (t) other than an injunc- tion or interdict in respect of the infringement if the defendant proves that at the date of the infringement he was not aware and had no reasonable ground for suspecting that copyright subsisted in the work.

��Who may plead the section ; question of innocent publisher and guilty author.

��The precise meaning or effect of this section is very difficult to determine. It appears to contemplate the case of proceeding's being taken against the actual author of an infringement, and such author being able to show that he was unaware and had no reasonable grounds for suspecting that cojjyright subsisted in the work which he hacl reproduced or copied from. The kind of case contem- plated will occur where a work is published anonymously or pseudonymously, and it is impossible to ascertain whether the copyright has or has not expired. It is con- ceived that in cases of this kind the section will protect the actual author of the infringement and all those subsc-

��(p) Hole V. Bradbury (1879), 12 Ch. D. 886; Isaacs v. Fiddemann (1880), 49 L. J. Ch. 412 ; Boosey v. Whu/ht (No. 2) (1899), 81 L. T. 26o.

{q) Hoqy v. Scott (1874), L. R. 18 Eq. 444; Weldon v. JJlchs (1878), 10 Ch. D. 247, 262 ; Muddock v. Blackwood, [1898] 1 Ch. 58 ; Black v. Imperial Book Co. (1904), 8 Ont. L. R. 9.

(>•) Sect. 2.

(s) Sect. 1 (2).

(<) Sect. 6 (1).

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