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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Chancery Division) Decisions >> JHP Ltd v BBC Worldwide Ltd & Anor [2008] EWHC 757 (Ch) (16 April 2008) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2008/757.html Cite as: [2009] Bus LR D1, [2008] EWHC 757 (Ch) |
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CHANCERY DIVISION
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
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JHP LIMITED |
Claimant |
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- and - |
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BBC WORLDWIDE LIMITED TRUSTEES OF THE ESTATE OF TERRY NATION |
Defendants |
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Ms C May (Mr J Whyte with her) (instructed by BBC Worldwide Legal Department) for the First Defendant
The Second Defendant did not appear
Hearing dates: 23rd-25th and 29th-30th October 2007
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Crown Copyright ©
"The company produced all these publications and continues to retain all of its rights relating to the content (text and graphics)…..As the Daleks have continued to grow in their cult status, passing from generation to generation, I believe there is a lot of potential for a revised and compiled publication"
(Where Paul Fishman referred to "the company" he was treating Souvenir and JHP as one and the same, because the relationship between the companies had always been very informal: there was no formal agreement assigning Souvenir's rights in the Books to JHP until the 19th of December 2002). Mr Dunn consulted Mr Justin Richards (a writer well-versed in all things Dalek) who was unclear exactly what Paul Fishman was proposing, but whose immediate reaction was that the BBC should look at "doing one or more Dalek books which re-use the material available, but with extra stuff as well".
(a) the agreement is the adaptation of a standard form;
(b) the agreement is between Terry Nation (who is defined as "the Proprietors") and Souvenir (which is defined as "the Publisher");
(c) the agreement relates to a book yet to be written and provisionally entitled "the Daleks Book";
(d) by clause 1 the Proprietors grant to the Publishers the "sole exclusive right to publish [the work] in book form in the English-language throughout the world";
(e) clause 3 contains a warranty that the work is not a violation of any existing copyright;
(f) clause 6 contains an obligation on the part of Terry Nation not to publish any abridgement or part of the work in book form or to prepare otherwise than for the publishers any work which shall be an expansion or abridgement of the work or of a nature likely to compete with it;
(g) clause 9 contains an obligation on the part of Souvenir to pay a royalty of 3.5 percent (and there is in clause 11 provision for the payment of an advance on such royalties);
(h) all decisions as the manner of publication are by clause 12 to lie in the absolute discretion of Souvenir;
(i) by clause 16 in the event of default by Souvenir then the agreement "shall be considered to be cancelled and all the rights granted in it shall revert to the proprietors forthwith";
(j) clause 18 contained a grant by Terry Nation to Souvenir of the right to negotiate certain book rights, including serialisation and reprints and licences to book clubs or publishers of cheap editions (but specifically excluding broadcast readings, dramatic adaptation for stage and/or radio and/or television and film rights).
(a) In Chaplin v Frewin [1966] Ch 71 it was agreed that the publishers should during the legal term of the copyright have the exclusive right of producing, publishing and selling a work in volume form in any language throughout the world. The author warranted that he was the owner of the copyright. Lord Denning MR was inclined to the view that "the agreement… was an assignment of copyright; ….. or at any rate it was the grant of an interest in the copyright". Dankwerts LJ thought the words "ample and effective to constitute an assignment", though he also thought they might constitute an exclusive licence. Winn LJ unequivocally thought the words "should….. be regarded as, and given the effect of, an assignment of copyright". There is, of course, a marked similarity between that case and the instant case. But it is not a binding authority relation to a different agreement: I have taken into account clauses which are not recorded as present in the Chaplin agreement, and a very different factual context. Moreover its persuasiveness is weakened by the fact that the actual decision was simply one setting aside an interlocutory injunction (not a final judgment).
(b) In Jonathan Cape Limited v Consolidated Press Ltd [1954] 1WLR 1313 the author agreed to grant the publishers the exclusive right to print and publish an original work in volume form during the legal term of unrestricted copyright in the English language. Dankwerts J held that under the Copyright Act 1911 part of the copyright had been transferred or assigned to the plaintiff company. He said he had been referred to certain authorities in which the matter was to some extent discussed but he did not get much assistance in reaching the proper construction of the agreement before him from those authorities. The case is valuable for that observation: but not for the conclusion which he happened to reach on the form of words before him, the commercial context of which is not apparent from the form of the report. (The matter appears to have arisen for decision because a procedural point was taken that the author had not been joined to the action; so a robust adoption of one limb of the alternative - the other being that there was a licence conferring a right to sue - is unsurprising).
(c) In Messager v BBC [1929] AC 151 the composers and authors of an opera granted the proprietor of the theatre the sole and exclusive right of representing a play. The agreement provided that the copyright in the music of the play should remain the property of the composer. As in the instant case there was also provision that in certain events the right of representation should "revert to and become again the absolute property of [the composer and the authors]"; also there was provision for payment of a percentage of the gross receipts. In the House of Lords the Lord Chancellor said that the language of reverter was to him "inept language in which to describe the mere cessation of a license and...much more apt to describe the reversion to the licensors of rights which had been assigned". In Loew's Inc v Littler [1958] Ch 650 a proprietor purchased "the sole rights of production in the English language in Great Britain etc" of Lehar's "The Merry Widow", in return for payment of a weekly royalty, with a provision that on default "all rights and interests in the said opera….shall then and there revert to [the German proprietor]". The Court of Appeal (following Messager) took the language of reverter to suggest that the purchaser had acquired a transmissible right (a reading reinforced by the factual context set out at p.659 of the report).
(d) Plainly the concept of reverter (rather than of termination or cessation) is strongly suggestive of the assignment or a transfer of a property right that does not depend for its existence on the very agreement which contains the reverter provision itself. But I agree with Miss May that there is no general principle that a reverter clause automatically indicates an assignment. In Frisby v BBC [1967] Ch 932 the agreement contained a provision that in certain events "all rights in [the work] should revert to the writer"; notwithstanding this Goff J. held that the agreement was not one designed to vest the copyright in the defendants even pro tanto, but merely to authorise or license them to perform the work. It is also relevant to note that in the 1964 Agreement what is to "revert" is a right "granted" by the Agreement (not a pre-existing right that was assigned or conveyed): so the language is not being used with the precision of a conveyancer and not too great a burden should be put on the technical concept of reverter.
(e) Indicators in an agreement rarely all point one way; and its meaning is to be collected from its terms as a whole. Whilst I recognise the force of the argument based on the language of reverter these authorities do not persuade me to a view different from that which I formed on the language of the agreement as a whole read in the context in which it was entered.
(a) in the initial stages of the preparation of the Guide it was anticipated that arrangements would be made whereby the BBCW writing team headed by Justin Richards would have freedom to use without restraint any of the materials in the Books;
(b) the creative process was therefore undertaken taken without any particular sensitivity to the issue of copying;
(c) part of the material that was available to the writing team was the text of and information contained in the Books, but there was also a very considerable body of Dalek lore deriving from TV and radio scripts, novels, plays and comic strips written or contributed to by Terry Nation or authorised by him subsequent to the publication of the Books;
(d) Part of the material contained in each of the Books themselves could not be regarded as "original" because it derived from the scripts of the "Dr Who" episodes featuring the Daleks that had been broadcast in 1963 and 1964, and therefore was not the product of the skill and effort expended by Terry Nation as author of that Book;
(e) in June 2002 there was a falling out between Paul Fishman and the BBCW production team;
(f) the consequence of this was that the writing team was instructed to remove " Fishman derived material" and substitute for it freshly written material;
(g) the writing team made a serious attempt to comply with this instruction which for the first time involved them in a consideration of the precise source of the text included in the Guide;
(h) because of the pressure under which they were having to produce the fresh text and because of the free use hitherto made of the Books there was a real risk of copying in fact taking place;
(i) despite the serious and sustained attempt at independent creation there was some copying;
(j) the copying was not (either in terms of quantity or in terms of quality i.e significance of the text copied) of a substantial part of any of the Books (for in applying that test each must be regarded as an individual work).
(a) the legal burden lies upon JHP to establish copying;
(b) given that the BBCW writing team had undoubted access to each of the Books, if there is a sufficient degree of similarity between the text of any of those Books and the text of the Guide then an inference of copying may be drawn;
(c) an evidential burden is then thrust upon the BBC to demonstrate independent creation (or derivation from a common source);
(d) a sufficient degree of similarity may be established not simply by direct copying but also by "altered copying" (and in the instant case Ms Mulcahy submitted that significant parts of the Guide constituted "camouflage and gloss" and asked me to look behind that and see the text of the original Books);
(e) if copying is established that copying will only amount to an infringement of copyright in the relevant Book if what has been taken comprises a substantial part of that Book (when assessed in relation to that Book as a whole) for the purposes of section 16(3) of CDPA 1988 (see Designers Guild v Russell Williams Textiles Ltd [2001] FSR 113 at 125 per Lord Millett at paras 41-43);
(f) that is always a question of fact and degree and involves an assessment of the importance (in terms of quantity and/or quality) of the copied part to the recognition and appreciation of the copyright work because "what is protected is the skill and labour devoted to making the "artistic work" itself, not the skill and labour devoted to developing some idea or invention communicated or depicted by the "artistic work" …." (per Buckley LJ in Catnic Components (1982) RPC 183 at 222 cited in Johnstone Safety v Cook [1990] FSR 161 at 176-178);
(g) although Ms Mulcahy referred me to the practical test that "what was worth copying was prima facie worth protecting", so that I should start with a bias towards anything that was "copied" being "substantial", I have not found that test useful. I think it tends to confuse questions of "copying" with questions of "substantiality", and to proceed upon the premise that if the text was "worth" copying for the Guide it was prima facie a substantial part of the relevant Book (which seems to me to focus on the importance of the text to the Guide rather than on the importance of the text to the whole of the relevant Book);
(h) a part of the relevant Book which by itself has no originality will not normally be a substantial part of the copyright, and copying it into the Guide will not make it so (see Warwick Films v Eisinger [1969] 1 Ch 508 at 533g-534b).
"It's all fair game - the TV programme, Dalek Annuals, TV 21 comic strips and of course the Big Finish "Dr Who" and "Dalek Empire" audios…."
The recipients of the brief would have understood the reference to "the Dalek Annuals" as including the three Souvenir publications which I have called "the Books" (as well as the actual Dalek Annuals published every year in the 1970s).
(a) "plant matter is ground into a fine powder and dispersed throughout the city by means of air ducts" is a modified copy of "plants were……strained into a whirling pulveriser….the plant dust was then turned into nutritious gases and circulated through the city" on page 49 of "The Dalek Book";
(b) "On the same level…. is the Master Control room, the nerve centre of the Dalek Empire" is a modified copy of "the Master Control room - nerve centre of the city" on page 50 of The Dalek Book;
(c) "Here the city's vital systems are checked and rechecked" is a modified copy of "Here every single activity of the city is recorded and checked" on page 24 of "The Pocket Book".
Whether such copying was of a substantial part is of course a separate question. Thus for example Mr Tucker described the Dalek city as powered by static electricity: and in the "The Dalek Pocket Book" there occurs on page 11 the statement that "the whole of the Dalek City is powered on static electricity". But this does not seem to be copying of a substantial part of "The Dalek Pocket Book"in which the author of that work has invested artistic effort, since in episode 6 of the first TV series Dr Who had already explained that "the whole city is powered by static electricity", so the words were already in Terry Nation's script.
"… your vision of this book is a long way from ours and there's really no room for any further major changes. I am happy for you to make a few tweaks to the JHP material that exists within our document…. If you want more major changes then I suggest with regret that we remove all the material owned by JHP.."
Mr Fishman replied with a request that "ALL JHP material is removed" by which he meant
"all content and intellectual property including concepts taken or developed from the original published material".
"we could rework some bits - the Dalek Anatomy springs to mind - so it's just completely different and entirely TV-derived"
This proposal was accepted and he was asked to rework the Anatomy and also to create new Frequently Asked Questions but not "to cross too much into the path of the confused and dangerous JHP rhinoceros".
(a) Ms Warman left in the Guide a reference to Terry Nation first discovering and translating the "The Dalek Chronicles". "The Dalek Pocketbook" stated that that work was largely based on the "… "The Dalek Chronicles" which I [Terry Nation] discovered and translated…". In the original draft the source of the reference in the Guide was explicitly acknowledged but somewhere in the editing process the attribution was removed. Ms Mulcahy says the importance of this reference cannot be overstated. I agree that it is the most significant instance of "copying". But that one sentence (important as the idea it embodies is) does not constitute a substantial part of "The Dalek Pocketbook".
(b) Ms Warman left in the Guide a reference to Zolfian commissioning his chief scientist Yarveling to develop a powerful war machine. In the course of evidence it became apparent that rather than simply being "lifted" from an original source ("The Glossary" in "The Dalek Pocketbook") the text had in fact been written by Mr Richards. Even if he had as a matter of fact plundered The Glossary for the names and events described in the text (which I have held he did not) it would not have amounted to copying a substantial part of The Glossary because The Glossary itself simply recorded what Terry Nation had already written on 30th January 1965 in a TV 21 comic strip (about the Daleks perfecting their terrible weapon until war minister Zolfian was satisfied and declared "This is a mighty invention Yarvelling…..").
(c) The same original source (TV21) provides the first appearance of "Dalekenium" (the metal used for the Dalek casing) further referred to on p. 11 of the "The Dalek Pocketbook"; of the Dalek Zeg's ability to absorb a chemical metal mixture produced by an explosion (ibid) ; and of the neutron bomb explosion on Skaro, Flidor Gold, and Arkellis Flower Sap (ibid p.14).
(d) Looking at the whole of "The Dalek Book" (some 93 pages in length) the allegations of copying relate to parts of two pages, which concern the The Dalek City and which repeat (in the context of another narrative) parts of the dialogue from the first broadcast Dalek story ;
(e) In the Guide it is said that "the area immediately behind the Dalek is the main blind spot". On page 54 of "The Dalek Book" it is said "The main blind spot is immediately behind the Dalek" (and this is repeated in "The Dalek Pocketbook"). This text is no more than a simple and straightforward expression of what is evident in the TV series and a natural consequence of the anatomy of a Dalek (and in fact exactly the same text has been in circulation without apparent objection from JHP since the publication of the "The Dalek 1979 Annual"). Even if in fact copied, and copied from "The Dalek Book" and not from the 1979 Annual, this cannot be the copying of a significant part of the "The Dalek Book"
Mr Justice Norris………………………………………………..7 April 2008