for $ 129. ment. Remedies. I. For Infringement of Playright. 1. (s) A Remedies penalty of forty shillings, or the full amount of benefit infringe- derived or damage sustained by the plaintiff from the infringement, whichever shall be greater, to be recovered by the author from anyone representing or causing to be represented without the authority of the author any dramatic piece. No one is liable to penalties unless he or his agent actually takes part in the representation (t). Thus owners of theatres, who let their theatre and apparatus to travelling companies, are not therefore liable for penalties for infringement incurred by such companies But in Marsh v. Conquest (u) the proprietor of a theatre who let his theatre for one night to one of his company, his son, for a benefit was held liable. In the evidence of dramatic authors (a) before the Commission this was complained of as working considerable injustice in the case of country theatres, taken by strolling companies for a week or less. They perform copyright pieces without consent, and are off before they can be reached, while the owners of the theatre are not responsible. Though the Commission do not refer to the matter in their report, the suggested liability of the owner seems desirable. 2. An injunction to restrain unauthorized performance. (s) 3 Will. IV. c. 15, § 2. (t) Russell v. Bryant, 8 C. B. 836; Lyon v. Knowles, 3 B. & S. 556. (u) 17 C. B. N.S. 418. () Mr. Palgrave Simpson, C. C. Ev. qq. 2381–8, 2441. § 129. III. For infringements of the common law right in an unpublished or unrepresented play, a common law Remedies action for damages and an injunction. Actions (y) must be brought within a year of the infringement. It is not necessary that the infringement should be committed knowingly (z). for infringement. § 130. Laws of other Law of other Countries.--United States. By § 4952 of the Revised Statutes the author of any drama shall have the sole right of printing and performing the same on countries. complying with the provisions as to deposit of printed title and copies. Statutory playright (a) therefore depends on statutory copyright; the play must be printed to give the author the statutory sole right of performing it. The duration of the term is twentyeight years from the registration of the title of the work, with, on its expiration, a further fourteen years on re-registration of the work by the author and his widow. The author must be a resident citizen of the United States. The author has, however, a common law (as well as statutory) right in an unpublished manuscript, and public performance (b) of a manuscript play does not divest this right, or defeat a statutory copyright afterwards secured. Neither will unauthorized publication divest the right (c), and the defendant must prove the authorization, not compel the plaintiff to prove the want of authority. (y) 3 Will. IV. c. 15, s. 3. (z) Lee v. Simpson, 3 C. B. 871. (a) Boucicault v. Hart, reversing several previous decisions, 13 Blatchford, 47. (b) Keene v. Wheatley, 9 Am. Law Reg. 33; Palmer v. De Witt, 47 N. Y. 532. (c) Shook v. Neuendorf, 11 D. R. N. Y. 985; Boucicault v. Wood, 2 Biss. 34, 39, 40. § 130. Laws of other A curious theory (d), if not now part of the law, for some time found support in dicta of judges, to the countries. effect that reproduction of a dramatic performance, not resulting from a breach of contract or confidence, or from a shorthand report, but merely from the exercise of memory is not an infringement of play- or copy- right. This however was disapproved as to copyright in the case of Keene v. Kimball (e), and completely reversed in French v. Conolly (f), where it was held that reproduction of a play on the stage by the aid of memory or stenographic notes is illegal. The proposition finds some slight support in English law in an obiter dictum of Bacon, V.C., in Boosey v. Fairlie (g), that apart from the statute it would be allowable to carry an opera away by memory, and perform it. It seems however utterly untenable on the ground of principle. Mental powers no more justify a literary, than physical strength a physical, robber; if it is allowable to pirate a play from memory, piracy of copyright should be justifiable if the compositor could set up the type from memory and without copy. Authors may reserve the right to dramatise or translate their works, and unauthorized dramatisation are therefore piracy (§ 4952). The penalties for infringement are to be assessed by the Court, and are not (h) to be less than one hundred dollars for the first, and fifty for every subsequent performance. (d) Keene v. Wheatley (v.s.); Keene v. Clarke, 5 Rob. N. Y. 38; Crowe v. Aiken, 2 Biss. 208. (e) 82 Mass. 545. (f) 1 N. Y. Weekly Digest, 196. (9) L. R 7 Ch. D. 301, 309. (h) § 4966. § 130. other France (i). Playright and copyright rest on the same law, and have the same duration, the life of the author Laws of and fifty years after his death. Unpublished MSS. countries. however are protected apart from statutory penalties even though performed on the stage. The right of publication does not necessarily carry with it playright. It is piracy under the French law: (1.) To take down an unpublished play by shorthand printing. of (2.) To publish an abridgment of a play so as to (3.) To dramatise a novel without the author's consent. (4.) To imitate a play in any language without the The Law of Germany (k) draws a distinction between dramatic and dramatico-musical works on the one hand, and purely musical works on the other. The former can only be represented with the consent of the author. The latter, if printed, can be performed by anyone (1), unless the author has reserved his right by a notice on the title-page of the published work. The duration of the right is for the life of the author and thirty years after his death. The penalties for infringement vary with the defendant's state of mind; knowing infringement is punished by a fine of the gross receipts of the performance; infringement in ignorance by a fine of the net profits only. (i) Copinger, p. 518. (k) Id. p. 534. (1) This corresponds to the change in the law recommended by the Copyright Commission, and attempted to be effected by the Musical Copyright Act of 1882. § 130. In Italy, while copyright is based half on the monopoly and half on the royalty system, playright is for a concountries. tinuous period of eighty years as a monopoly. Laws of other § 131. International Russia has no provisions regulating playright. It will be more convenient here to deal with that part of international copyright relating to the drama. copyright It has so far been assumed that the dramatic composition (dramatic). is communicated to the public, whether by printing or performance, for the first time in the United Kingdom. We have further to deal with the case where such first communication takes place abroad. The International Copyright Act (m) allows the Crown to grant playright to dramas first performed abroad on the terms of the previous English Dramatic Acts (n), subject to such limitations of the author's right as may seem good, and to certain provisions as to registration. Another clause (0) provides that the authors of works "first published out of Her Majesty's dominions shall have no copyright" (or playright) "therein other than such, if any, as they may become entitled to under this Act." The object was to enable the English Government to make terms with foreign countries for the mutual recognition of national copyright, and several conventions were concluded under the Act. The question of its effect with regard to countries with which no convention existed was brought before the English Courts in the case of Boucicault v. Delafield (p). B., a British subject, wrote a play and performed it in public in the United States, with which country England had not a copyright (m) 7 & 8 Vict. c. 12. (n) Id. § 5. (0) Id. § 19. (p) 1 Hem. & Miller, 597. |