Copyright: New Copyrights for Old Tunes
First published 28 May 2005 Some years ago I was consulted by a small pottery that had received a letter from the legal advisors to a much larger pottery complaining of infringement of copyright in the designs of one of their product ranges. My solicitors showed me samples of the complainant’s products. The back of each item bore words stating that the product was a genuine 18th century design. The letter of response that I settled for my clients alluded to that stamp. I never heard anything more about that case. It may well be that my draft did the trick and threw the complainant’s advisors off the scent. Equally, it may be that the complainant replied that the response was missing the point, that sufficient artistic work had been done in the late 20th century to reset the 18th design to constitute a separate copyright and that my clients prudently acknowledged the point. Whatever happened, it highlighted one of the more interesting questions of copyright law, namely what is the r...