Copyright: Its History and Its LawBowker, R. R. (Richard Rogers)
History
Copyright: Its History and Its Law
Bowker, R. R. (Richard Rogers)
Copyright -- History; Copyright -- United States -- History
The leading case under English law as to exhibition is that of Turner
_v._ Robinson in the Irish Court of Chancery in 1860, previous to the
passage of the act of 1862 which first provided statutory copyright for
paintings, and interpretative therefore of common law. Turner's "Death
of Chatterton" had been reproduced in a magazine and exhibited at the
Royal Academy and in Manchester, and was thereafter exhibited for the
purpose of obtaining subscriptions for an engraving, in Dublin, where a
photographer copied it and published a stereoscopic reproduction. The
Master of the Rolls held that the painting had never been published
because the exhibitions were on condition that no copies should be made,
and the engraving in the magazine was only a rough representation and
not a publication of the picture. The Court of Appeal also held against
the defendant, but because of his breach of contract, and declined to
decide whether there had been publication in London or Manchester. The
Lord Chancellor, however, expressed the opinion that exhibition at the
Academy, though conditioned, was publication, though a private view in a
studio rather than a picture gallery would not be. The Court of Appeal
did not pass on the further opinion of the Master of the Rolls that the
publication of a print was not publication of the picture. These
confusing opinions left the question in very misty shape and the most
important interpretation of English practice has come from an American
court.
{Sidenote: The Werckmeister leading case}
The latest and leading case as to exhibition is that of Werckmeister
_v._ American Lithograph Co., American Tobacco Co., _et al._, which was
decided by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1907, in an opinion written by
Justice Day. The English artist Sadler had sold, in 1894, to
Werckmeister of the Berlin Photographic Co. the copyright in his picture
"Chorus," which he exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1894,
and the design had been reproduced by the American Lithograph Co. for
use on an American Tobacco Co. label, though the photograph had been
given protection by copyright. In reply to the claim of the infringers
that such exhibition constituted dedication to the public, the Supreme
Court's decision quoted from Slater on "The law relating to copyright
and trade-marks."
{Sidenote: U. S. Supreme Court opinion}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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