COPYRIGHT LAW

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21906, 15 September 1934, Page 9 (Supplement)

COPYRIGHT LAW

ORIGIN OF PRINCIPLE Sir Edward German, the well-known British composer, when opening the new offices of the Performing Right Society at Copyright House, in London, recently gave his version of the origin of cop3 r right. He said that it had been stated that it was in the ancient kingdom of Tara, in Ireland, that the principle of copyright was first established. The story was that there were two monasteries and that they competed for the tourist trade of that time. In one monastery lived an artistic monk who designed a very beautiful psalter which so pleased the Abbot that he had it hung over the altar. People went in large numbers to see it. The monks in the other monastery wondered at the decline in the number of their visitors and sent to find out the reason for the popularity of their rivals. When the Abbot of the second monastery was told of the psalter he ordered an exact copy. The Abbot of the first monastery then appealed to the king, whose judgment was "To every cow her calf " and ordered that the infringing copy should be destroyed. Thus was first established the principle of copyright, which was now recognised throughout the world. He wished success in its new home to that valuable, in fact, indispensable body, the Performing Right Society.