Earl of Roseberry gave public speeches on five occasions. Reporters from The Times and other newspapers attended them. The reporters from The Times had taken down shorthand notes of the speeches and later the corrected, revised and punctuated their reports for publication in Times.
Reporters were employed under the terms that the copyright in all the materials composed by them for The Times belonged to the proprietors. The defendant published a book on Earl’s speeches which substantially included reports published in The Times.
Lord Roseberry did not claim any copyright. The proprietors, being the copyright holder brought an action for breach of copyright and also sought for injunction, damages and costs.
PROCEDURAL HISTORY
The case was reported to the Chancery Division where North J. held that the reporters have copyright in the report and not the speech and entitled them for injunction against D. D appealed.
The Court of Appeal (CoA) held that a report is not an actual composition and there is no copyright and allowed D’s appeal.
P appealed in House of Lords (HoL), the writing court. The writing court reversed the judgment of CoA and restored North J.’s decision and granted perpetual injunction.
ISSUE
Whether the reporters of the speech could be considered "authors" under the terms of the Copyright Act?
HELD
The plaintiff won. It was held that a person who makes notes of a speech delivered in public, transcribes them, and publishes in a newspaper a verbatim report of the speech, is the “author” of the report within the meaning of the Copyright Act 1842, is entitled to the copyright in the report and can assign the copyright.
Copyright existed in reports prepared by shorthand writers’ of public speeches as ‘original literary’ works. The speeches were made by the Earl of Rosebery in public when reporters were present. The reporters made notes in shorthand, transcribed them, corrected, revised and punctuated them and published them in newspapers as verbatim reports of the speeches. A speech and a report of a speech are two different things. Lord Roseberry was the author of his speeches. The shorthand writers were the authors of their reports of his speeches.
They spent effort, skill and time in writing up their reports of speeches that they themselves had not written. Even though the reporters had intended only to reproduce the speeches as accurately as they could, the works they prepared remained original works. This is an example of sweat of the Brow Doctrine.
The creator of a copyrighted work, even if it is completely unoriginal, is entitled to have his effort and expense protected, and no one else may use such a work without permission, but must instead recreate the work by independent research or effort.