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 copyrights in fashion illustrations for men’s clothes. In 1935, the defendant, a tailor, exhibited in his shop, show-cards displaying a man in morning-dress. He also put up posters at railway stations displaying a man in evening-dress. On October 16 the plaintiff wrote to the defendant complaining that the posters and show-cards infringed the plaintiff’s copyright. On October 18 the plaintiff supplied the defendant’s solicitor with copies of the work said to be infringed. The defendant at once removed the show-cards from his premises, and took steps to find out whether or not he was infringing the plaintiff’s copyright. On October 23 he wrote to the plaintiff saying that, although he did not admit any infringement of the plaintiff’s copyright, he thought it best to avoid complaint and discontinued the exhibition. On the same day the plaintiff issued a writ claiming from the defendant damages for infringement of copyright.
Held: The action failed. The knowledge required is actual, not constructive, knowledge Where a defendant acquires works without knowledge that it infringed copyright, no ‘knowledge’ within the meaning of the subsection could be imputed until he had had a reasonable opportunity to investigate the plaintiff’s claim that it infringed. On the evidence, the time when the defendant acquired that knowledge was October 23. Therefore, at the time the writ was issued, there was no exhibition by way of trade of any work which, to the defendant’s knowledge, infringed the plaintiff’s copyright.
Judges:
Goddard J
Citations:
[1936] 2 KB 176
Statutes:
Cited by:
Cited – Infabrics Ltd v Jaytex Shirt Co Ltd 1978
Section 5(2) of the 1956 Act provided that ‘Copyright in a . . work is infringed by any person who . . imports an article . . if to his knowledge the making of that article constituted an infringement of that copyright, or would have constituted . .
Cited – Twentieth 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 . .
Cited – 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 . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Intellectual Property
Updated: 04 May 2022; Ref: scu.442533
