Early Cases

Key early cases in the interpretation and application of the Statute include -

• Tonson v Baker (1710) - litigation three months after introduction of the Act, involving Tonson (the most famous UK publisher of the day) against a gang of notorious book pirates
• Webb v Rose (1732) - Webb successfully reclaimed stolen manuscript conveyances from his father's estate, with injunction granted against Ross to prevent him publishing the manuscripts. The court recognised a right of possession of the papers as physical property.
• Eyre v Walker (1735) - Eyre sought to restrict a pirate edition of The Whole Duty of Man [ofirst published in 1657]. Jekyll MR granted an interlocutory injunction to which Walker acquiesced and the case did not proceed
• Motte v Faulkner (1735) - Motte as publisher of Miscellanies sought an injunction to prevent sale/printing in England of a pirate edition. An injunction was granted; the publisher, in relying on the Statute of Anne, claimed that although some pieces of the collection predated the Statute, the work as a whole was first published in 1717. The case did not proceed to a hearing.
• Walthoe v Walker (1737) - an injunction was granted to prevent unauthorised printing of Nelson’s 1703 A Companion for the Festivals and Feast of the Church of England. Walker conceded after initial injunction was granted; the case proceeded no further.
• Tonson v Walker (1739) 3 Swans 642 - Tonson claimed to have sole publishing rights to Milton’s Paradise Lost and was granted an injunction, with Walker again failing to pursue the action. William Murray, for Tonson, characterises the Statute as "declaratory of an Author's property"
• Forrester v Walter (1741) - Forrester as an author of legal reports attempted to prevent unauthorised reproduction of his manuscript, with Lord Hardwicke granting an interlocutory injunction. The defendant acquiesced, leaving unanswered the question whether Forrester himself had the sole right to first publish his works
• Pope v Curl (1741) 2 Atk 342 - Pope objected to unauthorised publication of his letters to Swift, which had come into the possession of publisher Curl. Lord Hardwicke decided that Curl as receiver of the letters had only a qualified interest in the letters; possession did not give a licence to any person whatsoever to publish them to the world. Hardwicke implied that letters not intended for publication could be particular valuable, with commentators noting public policy considerations such as law encouraging authors not to abstain from correspondence out of fear of having no control over the correspondence.
• Tonson v Collins (1761) 1 Black W 303 - Alexander Wedderburn for Tonson identified copyright as consistent with common law recognition of property: "at first continued only as long as possession; then was extended for life; then was transmissible to representatives; lastly was refined into the multitude of rights".
• Tonson v Collins (1762) 1 Black W 329 - rehearing under Lord Mansfield, with Blackstone arguing that the "one essential requisite of property" was to "be a thing of value". In communicating a literary composition the author's first step was "clothing our conceptions in words, the only means to communicate abstracted ideas": those words might "be addressed wither by the ear or by the eye, by discourse or writing”. The words were "the vehicle of sentiments", which were "the thing of value", with the author alone being "entitled to the profits of communicating". Yates, for the defendant, argued that an author had a property in the sentiments until he publishcation, at which time the author's property ceased because publication "made the work common to everybody; like land thrown into the highway it is become a gift to the public". Yates maintained that to have property one must be able to exclude others from the enjoyment of that property, something he claimed was not possible after publication.
• Millar v Taylor (1768) - bookseller Millar brought action against Taylor, who printed Thomson's The Seasons. The author had assigned his poem to Millar in 1729, outside of the protection period. Lord Mansfield commented that "it is just, that an author should reap the pecuniary profits of his own ingenuity and labour. It is just, that another should not use his name, without his consent. It is fit that he should judge when to publish, or whether he ever will publish. It is fit he should not only chose the time, but the manner of publication; how many; what volume; what print. It is fit, he should chose to whose care he will trust the accuracy and correctness of the impression". Yates J in dissent characterised the injunctions in preceding cases as indeterminate: "these injunctions were but temporary suspensions till the rights should be determined". In contrast Lord Mansfield characterised them as being "as equal to any final Decree".
• Donaldson v Beckett (1774) - Scottish publisher Donaldson began operating in London in 1763, undercutting the prices of books whose statutory protection had expired. In 1768-9 he republished several works by Thomson, including The Seasons, although Beckett as a member of a consortium of printers claimed the rights to Thomson's works which he had acquired from Millar's estate. Relying upon Millar v Taylor, Lord Chancellor Apsley granted a perpetual injunction. Donaldson appealed to the House of Lords, with Apsley putting three questions to the judges: did the author have a common law right to control the first publication of his work, did the author’s right, if it existed, survive publication and if the right survived was it taken away by the statute? A majority replied yes, yes and no to those questions.
• Bach v Longman (1777) 2 Cowp 623 - composers Johann Christian Bach and Karl Friedrich Abel took action against publisher Longman, with Lord Mansfield holding that printd musical and dramatic compositions are books within meaning of the Statute
  
  
  
  

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