Performing Right Society, Ltd, v Bray Urban District Council

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1928
• Date: 01 January 1928
• Court: Supreme Court (Irish Free State)

S. C.,

Performing Right Society, Ltd.

and

Bray Urban District Council

"Self-governing Dominion" - Whether Copy-right Act, 1911, in force therein - Assignment of copyright subsequent to establishment of Irish Free State - Copyright Act, 1911 (1 2 Geo. 5, c. 46), ss. 1, 25, 26, 29, 31, 32, 35 - Constitution of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) Act, 1922 (No. 1 of 1922), Sch. I., Art. 73 - Irish Free State Constitution Act, 1922 (Session 2) (13 Geo. 5, c. 1), s. 3 - Industrial and Commercial Property (Protection) Act, 1927 (No.16 of 1927), ss. 4, 154, 163, 167, 174, 175, 176.

The Copyright Act, 1911, s. 25 (1), provides: "This Act, except such of the provisions thereof as are expressly restricted to the United Kingdom, shall extend throughout His Majesty's Dominions: Provided that it shall not extend to a self-governing Dominion unless declared by the Legislature of that Dominion to be in force therein. . . ." Section 31: "No person shall be entitled to copyright or any similar right in any literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic work, whether published or unpublished, otherwise than under and in accordance with the provisions of this Act, or of any other statutory enactment for the time being in force. . . ." The Industrial and Commercial Property (Protection) Act, 1927 (No. 16 of 1927), s. 154 (1), provides that, subject to the provisions of the Act, copyright shall subsist in the Irish Free State for the term thereinafter mentioned "in every original literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic work," if (a) in the case of a published work the work was first published in the Irish Free State; and (b) in the case of an unpublished work, the author was at the date of the making of the work a citizen of the Irish Free State or resident therein, "but in no other works, except so far as the protection conferred by the Act is extended by Orders thereunder relating to British Dominions and to foreign countries." Section 176 of this Act is similar to s. 31 of the Copyright Act, 1911. The plaintiffs claimed to be the proprietors of the sole right of performing in public two musical works by virtue of two assignments to them, dated respectively the 1st June, 1923, and the 19th May, 1925. They brought an action, alleging that on the 11th August, 1926, their copyright was...