The circumstances where it is against the policy of the law to use the court’s procedure to enforce
copyright are, I suspect, not capable of definition. However it must be remembered that
copyright is assignable and therefore the circumstances must derive from the work in question,
not ownership of the copyright. In my view a court would be entitled to refuse to enforce
copyright if the work is:(i) immoral, scandalous or contrary to family life;(ii) injurious to public life, public health and safety or the administration of justice;(iii) incites or encourages others to act in a way referred to in (ii).[Counsel for the defendant’s] submission that the driveway stills needed to be published in the
public interest to expose the falsity of the statements made by Mr Al Fayed has no basis in law
or in logic. Perhaps the driveways stills were of interest to the public, but there was no need in
the public interest in having them published when the information could have been made
available by The Sunwithout infringement of copyright ...LORD JUSTICE MANCE (concurring):[It] seems to me possible to conceive of situations where a copyright document itself appeared
entirely innocuous, but its publication – as a matter of fair dealing or, in circumstances outside
the scope of s.30, in the public interest – was justified by its significance in the context of other
facts. It might conceivably represent the relevant, though by itself apparently meaningless, piece
needed to complete a whole jigsaw.- PROTECTED WORKS
- General Scope
A wide variety of material is protectable under Article 2 of the Berne Convention.
That Article is liberally interpreted to take account of new technologies and
artistic practices. Article 2 and its companion, Article 2bis, read as follows:(1) The expression “literary and artistic works” shall include every
production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever may
be the mode or form of its expression, such as books, pamphlets and
other writings; lectures, addresses, sermons and other works of the
same nature; dramatic or dramatico-musical works; choreographic
works and entertainments in dumb show; musical compositions with
or without words; cinematographic works to which are assimilated
works expressed by a process analogous to cinematography; works
of drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, engraving and
lithography; photographic works to which are assimilated works
expressed by a process analogous to photography; works of applied
art; illustrations, maps, plans, sketches and three-dimensional works
relative to geography, topography, architecture or science.(2) It shall, however, be a matter for legislation in the countries of the
Union to prescribe that works in general or any specified categories of
works shall not be protected unless they have been fixed in some
material form.52