IMPERIAL COPYRIGHT CONFERENCE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2934, 8 June 1910, Page 106

IMPERIAL COPYRIGHT CONFERENCE.

AN IMPORTANT SUBJECT. NEED FOR UNIFORMITY. (Feoh Ode Own Correspondent.) LONDON, April 8. The Times announces that a conference of representatives of the British Government and of the self-governing colonies will be held in London next month to consider the Berne Copyright as revised at the Berlin Conference in November, 1908, and the attitude of the Empire towards the subject of copyright., The actual date of the conference has not yet been decided, but it will probably assemble on May 18. The Commonwealth of Australia will be represented by Lord Tennyson, the Dominion of New Zealand by Mr W. Hall-Jones, the South African Colonies by ' Sir Richard Solomon. India has not yet applied for permission to send a representative, but may do so. Newfoundland has decided not to be officially represented. The conference will probably be opened by Mr Sydney Buxton, President of the Board of Trade. The Foreign Office and the Colonial Office will be represented. THE MAIN QUESTION. The chief point for consideration will be whether it is advisable to promote an. Imperial Copyright Act, applying to the whole Empire, or a British domestic act, with power to the self-governing colonies to bring themselves within its scope afterwards. Article 26 of the revised convention provides- that the contracting countries shall have the right to accede to the convention at any time for their colonies or foreign possessions. They may do this either by a general declaration, comprising in the accession all their colonies or possessions, or by specially naming those which are comprised therein, or simply indicating those which are excluded. The committee appointed by Mr Churchill, as President of the Board of Trade, in March, 1909, to examine the revised convention and to consider whether the law should be altered so as to enable the Government to give effect to it, refrained from reporting upon ''questions which arise in connection with copyright in l the colonies, and the position of Great Britain with regard to the colonies." They pointed out that a conference of the representatives of the colonies was about to be called, and added:—"lt seems of the utmost importance that the colonies, as parts of the British Empire, should come into line with Great Britain, and that so far as possible there should bo one law throuighcut the Empire." It will be necessary, as Mr Churchill has already stated in the House of Commons, that any alteration of the existing law of copyright, to give effect to the decisions of the Berlin Conference, shall be made by leigislatiom. It is possible that a measure ratifying the adhesion of Great Britain to the convention may be introduced during the current session, but it is not considered likely that, in the present state of public business, any considerable progress would be made with the bill this year..