Copyright performance

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The copyright performance of a play was a first public performance in the United Kingdom, staged purely for the purpose of securing the author's copyright over the text. There was a fear that, if a play's text was published, or a rival production staged, before its official preview or premiere, then the author's rights would be lost; to forestall these abuses, the practice arose of staging a copyright performance, which was notionally public, but in practice staged hastily before an invited audience with no publicity and no regard for the artistic quality of the acting or production. [1] [2] One legal authority wrote that such a performance, "though probably not necessary to fulfill any legal requirement, permits registration of first performance at Stationers' Hall and gives useful public notice to possible infringers." [3] The practice was common in the decades after the Berne Convention of 1886; the United States was not a signatory, and plays first staged there were uncopyrightable in the United Kingdom. [4]

George Bernard Shaw's The Philanderer had a copyright performance hastily arranged in 1898 just before its publication in Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant. The play's more controversial scenes were cut from the performance to secure the approval required from the Lord Chamberlain, but restored in the printed version. Many less commercially viable plays were never performed other than in a single copyright performance. Novelists sometimes arranged copyright performances of dramatisations of their works; a single 1897 performance of Dracula enabled the widow of Bram Stoker to sue F. W. Murnau in 1922 when his unlicensed cinematic adaptation Nosferatu was shown in Britain. [5]

Copyright performances were rendered unnecessary by the Copyright Act 1911 (1 & 2 Geo. 5. c. 46), which secured the author's rights over unpublished and unperformed works and derivatives. [3]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyright</span> Legal concept regulating rights of a creative work

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Statute of Anne</span> 1710 legislation in Great Britain regulating copyright

The Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act 1709 or the Copyright Act 1710, was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1710, which was the first statute to provide for copyright regulated by the government and courts, rather than by private parties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musical composition</span> An original musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece

Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called composers. Composers of primarily songs are usually called songwriters; with songs, the person who writes lyrics for a song is the lyricist. In many cultures, including Western classical music, the act of composing typically includes the creation of music notation, such as a sheet music "score", which is then performed by the composer or by other musicians. In popular music and traditional music, songwriting may involve the creation of a basic outline of the song, called the lead sheet, which sets out the melody, lyrics and chord progression. In classical music, orchestration is typically done by the composer, but in musical theatre and in pop music, songwriters may hire an arranger to do the orchestration. In some cases, a pop or traditional songwriter may not use written notation at all and instead compose the song in their mind and then play, sing or record it from memory. In jazz and popular music, notable sound recordings by influential performers are given the weight that written or printed scores play in classical music.

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<i>Sejanus His Fall</i> 1603 play by Ben Jonson

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References

Footnotes

  1. Williams, Carolyn (13 August 2013). Gilbert and Sullivan: Gender, Genre, Parody. Columbia University Press. pp. 229–230. ISBN   9780231519663 . Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  2. Dudgeon, Piers (8 June 2011). Captivated: J. M. Barrie, Daphne Du Maurier and the Dark Side of Neverland. Random House. p. 154. ISBN   9781446476574 . Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  3. 1 2 Bowker, Richard Rogers (1912). "XI: Dramatic and Musical Copyright, Including Playright". Copyright, its history and its law. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin. pp. 183–184.
  4. Peters, Julie Stone (2003). Theatre of the Book, 1480–1880: Print, Text, and Performance in Europe. Oxford University Press. p. 362. ISBN   9780199262168 . Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  5. Smith, Andrew; Hughes, William (2012). The Victorian Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion. Edinburgh University Press. p. 68. ISBN   9780748642496 . Retrieved 12 November 2013.