To paraphrase Chief Baron Pollock, copyright is an artificial right; a creature of statute to be enjoyed as the laws of individual states direct. It derives from no natural law and has no existence in the common law of England.

It is a matter of some congratulation that in spite of world tensions, and the multiplicity of legal systems, the arts, with which copyright is so closely concerned and ever full of impractical men, should be the first area where wide international agreement was found. Copyright exists internationally and is a pointer to the way harmony of a sort can be found by negotiation. This is the more surprising for a topic with such a chequered history of development, and a by no means accepted standard of definition. As the Royal Commission of 1875 said: “The common law principles that lie at the root of the law have never been settled” and “It is not only arbitrary in some points, but is incomplete and obscure in others”.

Nevertheless, copyright grows as technology advances, a hydra generating rights, intruding into the living room. Everyone has heared of it even if they don’t understand it so the child with the Instamatic camera lisps questions about his copyright position.

If the power of advertising means anything then the copyright symbol, ©, and the word, must be the most familiar mark in Britain today. It appears with greater frequency on television screens than the names of popular performers; it is featured in books, plays, pamphlets and a host of other places demanding a passive recognition and acceptance by a public whose interest can only be equalled by its ignorance. But it has a very real meaning, and like so much in copyright law possesses a duality that can and does create confusion in the mind of the proverbial bus passenger.

In brief terms, copyright is the exclusive legal right for a specified period to authorise copying of original material, and in Britain now rests upon the Copyright Act, 1956. The Act refrains from defining the term, the whole Act concerns the nature and extent of the right. By means of this legislation and orders in council embodying and giving effect to the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention reciprocal protection overseas obtains. What is originality, who has the protection, for how long and why, are ultimately fundamental problems still to be resolved. The Act recognises two broad categories of original material which are entitled to protection; first literary, dramatic, musical and other artistic works; and secondly, sound recordings, cinematograph films and radio and television broadcasts. The two are inter-related in that a broadcast, for instance, can be subject to the rights in the written material, the musical composition, in a recording of that material, and in the broadcast itself. There are also ancillary rights to cover