Page:The copyright act, 1911, annotated.djvu/48

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36

��Copyright Act, 1911.

��2 (1) (V).

��Question whether right of newspaper summary applies to University lecture.

��What is a newspaper :

��is only adinilted u])oii the cxjDress terms that he will not report or sanction any report of the lecture. It is sub- mitted that -svliere there is a bargain of this kind between the lecturer and each one of his audience, the lecture is not delivered in public (/r) . The existence, however, of such a bargain may depend upon whether the terms of admission printed on a ticket of admission or otherwise have been brought with sufficient clearness to the notice of each member of the audience.

It has already been observed that the right of news- paper summary under jDaragraph (i^ applies whether the work summarised is published or unpublished. Where, however, the lecture is not delivered in public, it is de- livered on the imj)lied terms between the lecturer and his audience that they come for theii' own instruction and amusement only, and therefore publication even of a newspaper summary could be restrained on the ground that the publication was procured by breach of faith or confidence [J .

When a lecture is elelivered in public, the right to report or summarise is confined to newsjjapers. The Act contains no definition of newspaper. A newspaper is de- fined in certain other statutes (1) for the purposes of the law of libel, (2) for the purposes of the Post Office regula- tions. In the Newspaper Libel and Registration Act, 1881 (m), a newspaper means "any paper containing public news, intelligence or occurrences, or any remarks or observations therein printed for sale and published in England or Ireland periodically, or in parts or numbers at intervals not exceeding twenty-six days between the publication of any two such papers, parts or numbers." In the Post Office Act, 1908 (w), a newspaper is defined as " any publication consisting wholly or in great part of political or other news, or of articles relating thereto. or to other current topics with or without advertise- ments .... published in numbers at intervals of not more than seven days." The definition last above cited, without the final limitation as to the intervals of pub-

��[h) Macklin v. Richc.rdnon (1770), Amb. 694.

il) Cairdx. Sime (1887), 12 A. C. 326; Abernethy v. Hutchinson (1825), 3 L. J. (0. S ) Ch. 209.

(»m) 44 & 4o Vict. c. 60, s. 1. («) 8 Edw. VII. c. 48, s. 20.

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