the substance of the copyright work will be sufficient to render him liable for piracy, whether that work is a book of poetry or a newspaper. (See per Chitty, J., in Trade Auxiliary Co. v. Middlesbrough, etc., Association, 40 Ch. D. 425.) If, on the other hand, the Court comes to the conclusion that the reproducer's motive was honestly to discuss or controvert or explain the workmanship of the author or the facts or ideas contained in his book, there seems to be hardly any limit to the right to reproduce. Lord Ellenborcugh, C. J., a century ago, expressed doubts whether the whole book might not be then literally reproduced (Cary v. Kearsley, 4 Esp. 169). And as public events are, of course, pre-eminently matter for discussion, the Courts would, no doubt, apply liberally the doctrine of fair use to the reproduction of news for the purpose of discussion in the public press.

The news reporter then is just as much entitled to copyright in his telegrams or correspondence as the reporter of a speech is to the copyright in his report of the speech, or as the leader writer in his leader, or as the novelist in his fiction. This will be seen to be of some importance in connection with another matter.

Another point should, I think, be referred to in this connection. Several of the judges in their judgments in Walter v. Lane dwelt upon the skill and ability which a reporter must possess in order to report accurately-or rather to turn into respectable English as I should say—the speech of an ordinary speaker. There is no doubt about the necessity for such skill and ability in the case in question; but I think insistence upon it was unfortunate, as it is liable to mislead the reader. When the question is whether or not the document published is merely copied from another document, the point as to skill and ability is of importance; but where no such question arises, where there is no doubt but that the person claiming copyright is the pro

ducer of the document in which copyright is claimed-as is the case in reporting a speech-it does not matter in the slightest degree whether much or little skill or ability is needed. The Copyright Act gives the copyright in a document to the person who produces it, whether ability or skill was necessary to produce it or not. As Lord Brampton, in his judgment in Walter v. Lane, says, in his incisive way: "If a person chooses (and many do) to compose and write a volume devoid of the faintest spark of literary or other merit, I see no legal reason why he should not, if he desires, become the first publisher of it and register his copyright, worthless and insignificant as it would be." (Walter v. Lane, L. J. 69 Ch. 699, at p. 709.) This being so, I think it was unnecessary and even cruel of the learned judges to dwell so much upon the ghastly truth that it is owing too often to the skill and ability of the reporter that speeches are not merely made capable of being copied, and, therefore, the subject of copyright, but also made capable of being read.

Prima facie then the person who produces and publishes a document is entitled to the copyright therein. But there are two reservations upon this principle. The first is that he has no title to the copyright if the document is simply copied from another document produced by some other person or already published. This is what is meant by the phrase constantly recurring in judgments and text books, and constantly misunderstood by the public and even by lawyers, that a document in order to be entitled to copyright must be an original composition. All that is here meant is that it must be an original document, not merely a copy of a document. It does not mean that it must be original in thought and expression; it merely means that it must not be merely a reproduction of a document produced by someone else, or already published. This point is important, since in the case of Walter v. Lane the Court of

Appeal was itself misled into thinking that by "original" was meant that the contents of the document must be evolved some way or other out of the mind or imagination of the person claiming copyright in it-a view of the law which, if rigidly and consistently enforced, would, I venture to think, deprive nowadays nearly every author (except, perhaps, the Cape Town and Shanghai special correspondent) of all claim to copyright in his works.

It is to be noted that to prevent copyright arising it is necessary that the document should be actually copied from the other document-not merely that it should be identical with it. One document may be perfectly identical with another and still be an original. For instance, if a speaker does as I am informed on credible authority some speakers do-commit his speech to writing and afterwards commit it to heart, then, if he has a sufficiently good memory and if his reporter is a sufficiently good stenographer, it is certain that the reporter's report and the speaker's manuscript will be identical; but that will not prevent the reporter having the copyright in his report, because his report is not copied from the speaker's manuscript-it is his own production. If, however, as sometimes happens, the speaker handed his manuscript to the reporter, who merely made a copy of it, the Court could not, in my opinion, hold the reporter to be the "author" of the report of the speech. His report would not be an original document, but merely a copy of one already existing. At the same time, I am not by any means sure that the reporter might not make title to the copyright in such a case as the assign of the speaker, who in this case would be the author of the speech and also of the report of it.

The second limitation of the right of the producer of a published document to the copyright in it, is that the publication itself must not be an illegal act. The publication may be an illegal act owing to the nature of the contents

of the document. If the contents are blasphemous, indecent, or seditious, the publication of the document is contrary to law, and no copyright can arise in it. But the publication may also be an illegal act owing to its being a breach of an express or implied contract between the person publishing and some one else. This covers the case so often put, in the correspondence over the judgment in Walter v. Lane, of an amanuensis publishing books dictated to him by his employer. As I have already pointed out in such cases, the property in the book remains in the employer, and if the amanuensis publishes the book he acquires no more right to the copyright in it than any other thief does to property stolen by him. Not only so, but this limitation on the right of the producer of a document to the copyright in it, enables, as I have already indicated, a speaker to retain the exclusive copyright in his own speeches. If a speaker, before making his speech, announces that he declines to allow it to be reported, then anyone who reports it is guilty of a breach of faith, and the speaker could obtain an injunction to restrain him from publishing his report. It is not even necessary to make an express announcement to this effect: if the circumstances are such as to show that the speaker intended what is called only a limited publication of his words, the law will imply a contract between him and his hearers that the latter will not republish what he says. For example, a student has no right to print and publish his notes of a professor's lectures. He is entitled to take as full notes as he pleases of what the professor says, and to make any fair use of these notes he likes; but he has no right to appropriate the substance of the lectures for his own benefit by publishing them to the whole world (Caird v. Sime, 12 App. Ca. 326). When this is considered I think that the supposed grievance of speakers in not having the exclusive copyright in their own speeches

assumes a very attenuated form. The reason they have no such exclusive copyright is solely and simply because they deliberately abandon it. As a matter of fact, speaking from my own experience, the grievance of most speakers is not that they have not the exclusive right of reporting their speeches, but that the newspapers will not take the trouble to report them.

Assuming then the existence of copyright in reports of news or speeches, a question of great importance to journalists, and of great difficulty to lawyers, arises. It is this: Where the newspaper proprietor pays the reporter to report news or speeches, does the copyright belong to the reporter or to the newspaper proprietor? There are no decisions, as far as I am aware, to guide us in this matter. In Walter v. Lane it is assumed throughout that the copyright is in the reporter, but the proprietors of The Times prevented any question on this point arising by getting an assignment of the copyright from the reporters before going into Court. We are, therefore, left to decide the point for ourselves on the general law, and more particularly on the law of master and servant.

Giving my own opinion for what it is worth, I think there can be no question as to the outside reporter. The London correspondent or the local correspondent who sends letters -whether these are composed of news or reports of speeches, does not, as I have already pointed out, matter in the slightest-is, in the absence of an express agreement to the contrary, within the protection of section 18 of the Copyright Act. In other words, the newspaper proprietor who publishes his correspondence, has no other right to it than the right to publish it in his paper. The reporter can prevent his publishing it in any other way -as for instance in a weekly edition of his paper—and he can prevent any other newspaper from publishing it at all. He is a contributor to a periodical, and in the absence of