uld not successfully attack
each other, because neither had an established reputation when first
adopted.

Drama and music.

12. Dramatic and musical compositions stand on this peculiar footing,
that they may be the subject of two entirely distinct rights. As
writings they come within the general Copyright Act, and the
unauthorized multiplication of copies is a piracy of the usual sort.
This was decided to be so even in the case of musical compositions under
the act of 1709. The Copyright Act of 1842 includes a "sheet of music"
in its definition of a book. Separate from the copyright thus existing
in dramatic or musical compositions is the stage-right or right of
representing them on the stage; this was the right created by the
Dramatic Copyright Act of 1833, in the case of dramatic pieces. This act
gave the owner of the stage-right (right of representation) a period of
twenty-eight years, or the duration of the author's life if longer. The
Copyright Act 1842 extended this right to musical compositions, and made
the period in both cases the same as that fixed for copyright. And the
act expressly provides (meeting a contrary decision in the courts) that
the assignment of copyright of dramatic and musical pieces shall not
include the right of representation unless that is expressly mentioned.
The act of 1833 prohibited representation "at any place of public
entertainment," a phrase which was omitted in the act of 1842, and it
may perhaps be inferred that the restriction is now more general and
would extend to any unauthorized representation anywhere. A question has
also been raised whether, to obtain the benefit of the act, a musical
piece must be of a dramatic character. The dramatization of a novel,
i.e. the acting of a drama constructed out of materials derived from a
novel, is not necessarily an infringement of the copyright in the novel
(supposing it to be possible to do it without making any sort of
colourable copy of the literary form), but to publish a drama so
constructed has been held to be a breach of copyright (_Tinsley_ v.
_Lacy_, 1863, 1 H. & M. 747, where defendant had published two plays
founded on two of Miss Braddon's novels, and reproducing the incidents
and in many cases the language of the original). Where two persons
dramatize the same novel, what, it may be asked, are their respective
rights? In _Toole_ v. _Young_, 1874, 9 Q.B. 523, this point actually
arose. A, the author of a published novel