Copyright in compilations turns on original selection and skill, with notes and glossary protected against copying.
Copyright in a compilation requires original intellectual labour in the selection, expression or arrangement of material, not mere reproduction of common source passages. On the facts, the selected text was treated as a reprint of passages from a prior work and lacked sufficient originality, so protection for the text was not established. By contrast, separately prepared notes and glossary can be original literary works where they reflect real selection, condensation, judgment and skill and add substantial value. The notes here were found to meet that standard, and serial copying of them showed infringement. Copyright therefore subsisted in the notes and glossary, but not in the text itself.
Issues: (i) Whether copyright subsisted in the selected text compiled from a prior work of which the original translation was assumed to be outside copyright protection; (ii) Whether the notes and glossary appended to the compilation were protected by copyright and infringed by the respondents.
Issue (i): Whether copyright subsisted in the selected text compiled from a prior work of which the original translation was assumed to be outside copyright protection.
Analysis: Copyright under the Copyright Act, 1911, protects the product of labour, skill, judgment and literary taste, but the protection must attach to an original expression or compilation and not to the underlying common materials. A mere process of selecting detached passages from a public source and joining them with a few connective words, without sufficient intellectual labour or skill in the expression or arrangement, does not necessarily create an original literary work. On the facts, the text of the appellants' book was found to be only a reprint of selected passages and did not show the requisite degree of originality in the compilation of the text itself.
Conclusion: Copyright in the text was not established, and the claim on that part failed.
Issue (ii): Whether the notes and glossary appended to the compilation were protected by copyright and infringed by the respondents.
Analysis: Notes may themselves constitute original literary work if they involve real selection, condensation, learning, judgment and skill, and if they add true and substantial value to the edition. The notes here were found to be well chosen, condensed, accurate and useful for school study, and they required classical knowledge, labour and sound judgment in their preparation. The respondents had serially copied many of these notes, and the identity of wording showed copying rather than independent compilation.
Conclusion: Copyright subsisted in the notes and glossary, and that copyright was infringed.
Final Conclusion: The appellants succeeded only in part, because protection was denied for the text but upheld for the notes and glossary, resulting in a modified decree in their favour to that limited extent.
Ratio Decidendi: Copyright in a compilation depends on original intellectual labour in the expression, selection or arrangement of material, and separately prepared notes or annotations may be protected where they embody sufficient skill, judgment and value as original literary work.
TaxTMI 
AI Drafter ✕
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
