Copyright.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 12, 1 October 1906, Page 338

Copyright.

PHOTOGR \PH COP\ RIGHT GOOD CoNSIDERvtion — Section 2 oi " Ihe Fine Arts Copyright

Act, 1877," enacts that the author of, into aha, every original photograph shall have the sole right to sell, copy, engrave, reproduce and multiply it for the life of the author and seven years after his death , provided that when any negative of any photograph shall be made or executed for or on behalf of any other person for a good or valuable consideration, the person so making or executing the same shall not retain the copyright unless it be expressly reserved to him by agreement m writing, but the copyright shall belong to the person for or on whose behalf the same shall have been made or executed. Messrs Stackemann, photographers, were in the habit — as a speculation — of taking photographs of school buildings by permission oi the principals it being understood that the principals need not buy any photographs unless they so desired. In 1904 Messrs. Stackemann, by permission of Rev. W G Price, the proprietor of a school at Harrow, took photographs of the school, certain rooms shown them by Mr. Price, and groups of the cricket eleven and of the boys of the school posed by Mr. Price. Subsequently Mr. Price purchased worth of photographs. Mr. Paton published " Patons list of Schools and Tutors " and the advertisers in this volume used to furnish him with photographs of their schools for insertion in the text. Accordingly, Mr. Paton published in his book one of the photographs taken by the Stackemanns which had been furnished to him by Mr. Price. The Stackemanns considered this an infringement of their copyright, and sued Mr. Paton accordingly Held, however, by Farwell, J., that the circumstances under which the photograph was taken constituted " good consideration " from the school proprietor to the photographers, and that therefore the copyright of the photographs belonged to the school proprietor and not to the photographers. Stackemann v. Paton. 75 * L.J Ch. 590.

Company. Sale of Undertaking. — A provision in a Company's memorandum of association giving it power to sell its real and personal property does not confer on the Company power to sell its whole undertaking Such a transaction can only be effective it the memorandum of association reserves to the Company express power to sell its undertaking The Rewa Co-operative Dairy Company v. Loncigan. 25 N.Z. L.R.