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an express agreement to the contrary, section 18 of the Copyright Act preserves to him the copyright in his work, subject to the newspaper proprietor's right to publish it in his newspaper.

The position, however, of the staff or inside reporter seems to me to be altogether different. He is the paid servant of the newspaper proprietor, just as the bookkeeper of a merchant is the paid servant of his employer, and therefore I am inclined to think that his reports, whether of speeches or of news, are the property of the master. I cannot see how the reporter can be brought within section 18 of the Copyright Act. He is not a person retained and paid to contribute articles or other matter to the newspaper. He is a person employed to do certain work which the proprietor, acting through the editor, can use or not, as he thinks proper. He is, it appears to me, much in the same position as a secretary or amanuensis. He does whatever work he is told to do, and the result of his work is the property of his employer. The question, however, has never, as I have said, been before the Court, so far as I am aware, and accordingly I give my opinion merely for what it is worth, and with many misgivings.

Taking this to be the true legal position of the reporter of speeches or news-and I venture to think that the Courts will not hold it to be worse, though they may hold it to be better-it is clear that the journalist has often a valuable interest in his work, even after it has been paid for by the newspaper proprietor and published in his newspaper. But what remedy has he for the piracy of his work? I have no hesitation in saying that under the law as it now stands the journalist has no real remedy whatever. A remedy exists, but its expense and delay are such as to make it useless to the poor reporter, who cannot recklessly incur the cost of an action which may in the result go against him, or even

when the decision is in his favour, may leave him to pay his own costs. If the working journalist is to be protected he must have what we lawyers call a summary remedy. That, we have already pointed out in the book to which I have already referred. There, at page 119, we say: "There is a considerable class of writers who supply short articles, or sketches, or paragraphs of news to the newspapers in manifold copies, each paper making use of one of these having, according to the contract, a limited right of publication for a certain price named, the author reserving to himself the copyright. When other papers, as sometimes happens, instead of accepting such such literary matter from the author and paying him for it, simply pirate it from some paper in which it has already appeared, the writer finds himself practically helpless. He cannot sue in the local County Court for the price of the article; and to suggest that he shall commence an action in the Chancery Division for infringement of copyright in the case of a scrap of matter valued at only a few shillings, is an absurdity. The only practical remedy would be a provision similar to that in Bulwer Lytton's Act for the protection of dramatic property (which was by the Act of 1842, extended to musical property) by which, in case of infringement, the offender can be proceeded against summarily in any court having jurisdiction in such cases, for the recovery of a penalty of not less than forty shillings, or damages to the full amount of the benefit to the defendant, or of the injury or loss to the plaintiff, whichever shall be the greater, together with double costs of the suit."

The remedy here recommended has been adopted in the Copyright Bill which has been again and again before a select committee, and may perhaps some day become an Act of Parliament-the most unlikely things in the world do sometimes happen. Clause 12 of that Bill provides a summary remedy by penalty for republishing without the

owner's consent news obtained specially and independently of a fact or event which has taken place beyond the limits of the United Kingdom. I have already, in a communication to your Council, which has been published in your proceedings, pointed out how this provision is based on a complete misunderstanding of the Colonial enactments which it is intended to follow. I will not repeat those criticisms. I will merely refer to two points. The provision is in the first place founded, as the prefatory memorandum to the bill shews, on the assumption that under the present law there is no copyright in news apart from its literary form. That, as I have already pointed out, is a complete mistake. But assuming that its object and effect is to prevent absolutely the reproduction of news, either for the purpose of discussion or any other purpose, it, in the second place, gives the summary remedy for this right only to the proprietors of newspapers and magazines. This, I venture to say, is giving help precisely where it is little needed, and refusing help where help is necessary to protect a man's honest work. The newspaper proprietor and the news agency are, without the aid of a summary remedy, perfectly able to protect themselves, as the various. cases The Times has, for the benefit of all journalists, fought out, well shew. The person who now suffers, and who, however you extend his property in his work, will continue to suffer, is the poor country reporter or the young man who makes a humble living by his letters from London to country papers. To pass an enactment to help the wealthy man who needs no help, whole leaving the poor man unprotected, is a complete travesty of reform. If the summary remedy is to be of any practical use, it must be extended beyond the proprietors of newspapers and magazines to the outside news reporter and local correspondent.

Finally, I would desire to say one word on this provision from a point equally important to newspaper proprietors

and newspaper writers. Most of the enactments passed nominally to protect or benefit the press have turned out to be entirely to its detriment. This is conspicuously the case in the matter of libel. If this Copyright Bill is passed I am not sure that the same thing may not occur again. The news reporter has now, undoubtedly, the copyright in his work, both in its form and in its substance for the same period that other authors have it. It is not at all clear to me that this provision of the Copyright Bill, whatever it is intended to do may not reduce that copyright, both in the form and in the substance of his work, from a period of fortytwo years to a period of eighteen hours.

J. ANDREW STRAHAN.

V.-INDIAN JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION.

UR new Judge-Advocate-General, Sir John Scott, K.C.M.G., D.C.L, was, during many years, at the head of the Judicial Administration in Egypt, being also the British Member of the Mixed Tribunal. Afterwards he was a Judge of the High Court, Bombay. Hence, in addition to previous practice at the English Bar, he has had experience of divers legal systems and very different modes of judicial procedure. One considerable portion of what he has gleaned in these varied fields of judicial administration was embodied, some little time back, in a paper entitled "English and Anglo-Indian Criminal Procedure; a Comparison," read before the Indian Section of the Society of Arts; and his broad and suggestive treatment of the subject was such as to afford, in the instructive debate that followed, ready openings for still wider survey of the practical aspects of Comparative Law and Procedure.

OUR new Advoca,

Mention of the names of some of the eminent jurists who contributed to that discussion may suffice to indicate that

the ground travelled over was much wider than that of criminal jurisprudence or Common Law. Indeed, some of the speakers, Sir Courtenay Ilbert, for instance, were anxious to explain that their knowledge of criminal law courts was very limited; but this disavowal left them all the more free to resume the perennial debate on Codification, its advantages and limitations. That speaker, after referring to Sir James Stephen's great draft code, which, though it did get before the House of Commons, had to be withdrawn, went on to remind his well-informed audience that scarcely any English-speaking community has codified its Civil Law; though he also admitted that Canada led the way in codifying its Criminal Law, and that a penal code, prepared long since for Jamaica, has been adapted for two or three other Crown Colonies. His only general criticism on Sir John Scott's paper was to the effect that some proposals therein for reform of English procedure had "too much Oriental flavour for his taste "-albeit we may recall that Sir Courtenay had his own turn in modifying or mending the Indian codes. Sir Frederick Pollock's review of the whole subject was replete with considerations looking before and after, which abounded with instruction. He made a peculiarly interesting diversion in showing that the Scottish system of criminal procedure has been "far too much neglected by students of Comparative Law"; and herein it may be remarked that Sir John Scott's vindication of the Indian procedure affords an effective comparison adverse to English criminal procedure, which, as he said, "remains a body of uncodified law to be found only in many books and decisions."

Before going further with our notes on this comprehensive survey, it should be mentioned that the debate was opened by the Chairman for the occasion, Sir Francis Jeune. After expressing his high appreciation of Sir John Scott's varied qualifications for dealing with the subject,

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