Copyright Act 1911 - The Act

The Act

In the two centuries after the Statute of Anne of 1710, which afforded copyright protection to books, other works were afforded copyright protection either through case law, as in the case of music, or through Acts of Parliament, as in the case of engravings, paintings, drawings and photographs, in legislation such as the Engraving Copyright Act 1734 and the Fine Arts Copyright Act 1862.

The Copyright Act 1911 consolidated previous copyright statutes, and apart from minor exceptions, the Copyright Act 1911 repealed all previous copyright legislation and established a single statute covering all forms of copyright.

The 1911 Act implemented the Berne Convention, which abolished the common law copyright in unpublished works and responded to technological developments by conferring copyright on a new type of works not mentioned in the Berne Convention, namely sound recordings.

The 1911 Act abolished the need for registration at the Stationers' Hall and provided that copyright is established upon the creation of a work. However, as the 1911 Act come into effect at different times in different countries of the Commonwealth, registration at Stationers' Hall continued to be required in some Commonwealth countries after 1911. The Act also stated that copyright arose in the act of creation, not the act of publishing.

The scope of copyright was further widened and producers of sound recordings were granted the exclusive right to prevent other reproducing their recordings, or playing them in public. The act provided that the copyright in literary, dramatic and music works could be infringed by the making of a film or other mechanical performance incorporating the copyrighted works.