Sillitoe v McGraw-Hill Book Co: 1983

The defendants had imported and distributed a series of ‘study notes’ for students which the plaintiffs alleged infringed the copyrights in the works under discussion.
Held: The defendants had been ‘fixed with knowledge’ 14 days after letters before action sent by the plaintiffs, that being a reasonable time in which to consider their position.
The court considered whether the lack of acknowledgement of the source of a quote made the use unfair. As to whether a use was in breach of import provisions so as to give rise to additional damages: ‘What the defendants have done here and knowing of the plaintiffs’ comments and the facts on which the complaints were based, was to take the risk of finding their legal advice wrong. If a person takes a deliberate risk as to whether what he is doing is wrong in law, I do not see that he can say later that he did not, at the time, know that what he was doing was wrong, if in the event his actions are held to be wrong.’

Judges:

Mervyn Davies QC J

Citations:

[1983] FSR 545

Statutes:

Copyright Act 1956 5(2) 5(3)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

CitedAlbert v Hoffnung and Co Ltd 1921
(Court of Appeal of New South Wales) ‘Knowledge’ means . . notice of facts such as would suggest to a reasonable man that a breach of copyright law was being committed.’ . .
CitedVan Dusen v Kritz 1936
Section 2(2) of the 1911 Act, which provided that ‘Copyright in a work shall also be deemed to be infringed by any person who . . (c) by way of trade exhibits in public . . any work which to his knowledge infringes copyright.’ The plaintiff owned . .
CitedRCA Corporation v Custom Cleared Sales Pty Ltd 1978
(Court of Appeal of New South Wales) The court considered the knowledge to be established for copyright infringement saying, ‘the knowledge which has to be proved is actual but not constructive’. . .

Cited by:

CitedFraser-Woodward Ltd v British Broadcasting Corporation Brighter Pictures Ltd ChD 23-Mar-2005
The claimant asserted infringement of copyright by the defendants in photographs of the family of David Beckham. The defendant admitted using the photographs but asserted that no permission was required since the use was a fair dealing.
Held: . .
CitedTwentieth Century Fox Film Corp and Others v British Telecommunications Plc ChD 28-Jul-2011
The claimant rights holders sought an order to require the defendant broadband internet provider to deny access to its users to websites which were said to facilitate the distribution of infringing copies of their films. An earlier judgment had . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Intellectual Property, Damages

Updated: 30 April 2022; Ref: scu.223819