Walter v Lane
A reporter who took down a speech in shorthand and published it was the author of the report, so copyright subsisted in it, separate from the speaker's rights.
Facts
Lord Rosebery, a politician, gave a series of public speeches. Reporters from The Times took them down in shorthand, corrected and revised them, and published them in the newspaper. Mr Lane later published a book containing the speeches, copied from The Times. The Times, through its manager Mr Walter, sued for infringement of copyright in the reports.
Legal principle
The House of Lords held that copyright subsisted in the reports, and that The Times owned it. The reporters had used skill and labour in producing the reports, and they were the authors of the reports as literary works, although not of the speeches themselves. The case was decided under the Copyright Act 1842, which did not require originality, and its authority under the modern law has been questioned, but it was followed in Sawkins v Hyperion Records.
Related cases on copyright: subsistence, originality and authorship
- Cofemel Sociedade de Vestuário SA v G-Star Raw CV Case C-683/17, EU:C:2019:721
- Creation Records Ltd v News Group Newspapers Ltd [1997] EMLR 444
- Exxon Corp v Exxon Insurance Consultants International Ltd [1982] Ch 119
- Fisher v Brooker [2009] UKHL 41, [2009] 1 WLR 1764
- Football Dataco Ltd v Yahoo! UK Ltd Case C-604/10, EU:C:2012:115
- George Hensher Ltd v Restawile Upholstery (Lancs) Ltd [1976] AC 64
- Hadley v Kemp [1999] EMLR 589
- Infopaq International A/S v Danske Dagblades Forening Case C-5/08, [2009] ECR I-6569
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