GRAMOPHONE RECORDS.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17315, 29 November 1921, Page 7

GRAMOPHONE RECORDS.

IMPORTANT COPYRIGHT JUDGMENT. {By OaMe—Preas (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) SYDNEY, November 28. Mr Justice Harvey gave an important judgment in the case of Albert and Sons, music publishers, against Hoffnung and Co., for alleged breach of copyright. The plaintiff claimed the ownership of tho copyright in Australia and New Zealand of the eong, "My Own lona." It was alleged that the defendants imported and sold gramophone records of the song in contravention of the plaintiff's right to make or import such records. Plaintiff asked for an order restraining tho defendants from infringing his copyright or importing records into Australia without his con* sent. ( Tho defendants did not deny the importation or sale of the records, which wore made under the British Copyright Act, and acquired by them in the ordinary course of trade. They claimed that the British Act justified their ao tion as far as the records were com cerned. Mr Justice Harvey ruled that, de» spite the provisions of the British Act, the importation or making here or the sale of these records in Australasia would be an infringement of plaintiff's copyright, unless notice had been given to plaintiff, and royalties paid him. He held that the gramophone records were olearly copies within the meaning of the Copyright Act. In the case of double-sided records, xf they wem inseparable, he ordered them to be handed over to plaintiff within three weeks, plaintiff to obliterate the record on the reverse side. The operation of the Judge's decree was ordered to be suspended for three weeks. The case is the first of its Wntkyberc the legality of copyright, m affecting the importation of phonograph or other meohanical records from .the United Kingdom into the self-governing Do* minions has been raised.