Levy v Rutley: CCP 1871

A claim of joint authorship was made in a play entitled The King’s Wager, or The Camp, the Cottage and the Court. The play had been written by a Mr Wilks, to whose work the plaintiff, and others at the plaintiff’s suggestion, had added a scene and a few other alterations and additions. The plaintiff claimed that he was joint author of the play. The statute under which the case was decided, the 1842 Act, contained no concept of joint authorship.
Held: The claim for joint authorship was rejected. There can be no finding of joint authorship in a copyright work in the absence of a common intention to that effect.
Keating J said: ‘Could the additions so made constitute him a joint author with Wilks of the whole piece? There may, no doubt, be a plurality of authors: the statute, in s.1, dealing with the duration of copyright, speaks of ‘the author or authors, or the survivor of the authors.’ But I fail to discover any evidence that there was any co-operation of the two in the design of this piece, or in its execution, or in any improvements either in the plot or the general structure. All the plaintiff claims to have done is to vary some of the dialogue, so as to make it more suitable for his company or for his audience. If the plaintiff and the author had agreed together to rearrange the plot, and so to produce a more attractive piece out of the original materials, possibly that might have made them joint authors of the whole. So, if two persons undertake jointly to write a play, agreeing in the general outline and design, and sharing the labour of working it out, each would be contributing to the whole production, and they might be said to be joint authors of it. But, to constitute joint authorship, there must be a common design.’
Montague Smith J distinguished the circumstance in which alterations are made to a work which will not lead to joint authorship of the original work from a true collaboration which might result in joint authorship: ‘It is, no doubt, difficult to draw the line: but it never could be suggested that, when an author submits his manuscript to a friend, and the friend makes alterations and improvements, the latter would thereby become a joint author of the work. If, when the piece was brought to the plaintiff, he had said to Wilks, ‘This thing requires to be remodeled, and you and I will do it together,’ and Wilks had assented, possibly a case of joint authorship might have been set up. But the evidence here falls very short of that.’

Judges:

Keating J, Byles and Montague Smith JJ

Citations:

(1871) LR 6 CP 523

Statutes:

Literary Copyright Act 1842

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

CitedHodgens v Beckingham CA 19-Feb-2003
The defendant appealed a finding of infringement in a music copyright work, ‘Young at Heart’, based on a claim of joint authorship. The claimant had delayed his claim for many years, but now sought only rights to future royalties.
Held: The . .
Still Good lawMartin and Another v Kogan and Others IPEC 22-Nov-2017
The parties disputed whether joint authorship of the screenplay for a film, ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’. The claimant now sought a declaration of sole authorship of film screenplay, and the defendant cross-claimed for a declaration of joint . .
CitedKogan v Martin and Others CA 9-Oct-2019
Dispute over the authorship of the screenplay of a film.
Held: ‘the judgment cannot stand. The judge has adopted an erroneous approach to the evidence, failed to make important findings of primary fact, failed to take account of material . .
CitedNeudorf v Nettwerk 10-Dec-1999
Supreme Court of British Columbia – There can be no joint authorship in the absence of a common intention to that effect.
Cohen J said: ‘In the result I find that the test for joint authorship that should be applied to the facts in the instant . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Intellectual Property

Updated: 07 September 2022; Ref: scu.266724