Imam, J.:— The Plaintiff in this suit is the Proprietor and Editor of a Law-periodical known as the Calcutta Weekly Notes. The first Defendant is the Proprietor, Editor and Publisher of a rival Law periodical known as the Calcutta Case Law. The second Defendant is a company of printers. The suit is to restrain the Defendants from committing piracy on the Plaintiff's periodical, for account of the profits made by the first Defendant by sale of the pirated issues of the Calcutta Case Law, for damages and for other consequential reliefs.
The Plaintiff's case is that the reports of the decisions of this Court as well as of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council published in the Calcutta Weekly Notes are the result of considerable labour and expense on his part as well as on the part of the staff employed by him, and that in his reports he has an ??? have been systematically pirating reports from the Calcutta Weekly Notes and printing and publishing the same in the Calcutta Case Law. In the schedule to the plaint, some of the instances of piracy have been set out. A comparison of the reports in the Calcutta Weekly Notes with those of the Calcutta Case Law establishes the fact of the latter reproducing the reports of the former with a degree of faithfulness that leaves no room for doubt that the Defendants have availed themselves of the benefits of the Plaintiff's labour.
The second Defendant has undertaken not to print any more of the piracies of the first Defendant. The trial, therefore, has proceeded on the contest of the latter only. The contesting Defendant maintains that the Plaintiff has no copyright in the reports of judgments of any Courts of law and denies the alleged piracy.
It is generally true that in the reports of judgments, the reporter has no copyright, but it cannot be said that in the selection of cases, and in the arrangement of the reporting, the reporter has not the protection of the law. The Defendant is entitled to report such judgments as he obtains by expenditure of his time, labour and money, but where he fails to exert his own energies, he cannot be allowed to avail himself of other peoples' industry. The contesting Defendant, instead of restricting himself to reporting the judgments only, has gone much farther. What he has done in the present case is that be has freely drawn on such portions of the Plaintiff's reports as form no part of the judgment. He has also taken from the Plaintiff's report ??? facts not to be found in the judgment, but have been gathered by the reporters from the records of the cases. The Defendant, no doubt, was at liberty to bestow his labour on collecting the facts for himself, but he was not entitled to avail himself of the labours of another.
“Whilst all are entitled to resort to common sources of information, none are entitled to save themselves trouble and expense by availing themselves for their own profit of other men's works, subject to copyright, and entitled to protection,” so said Lord Lingdale, M.R, in Lewis v. Fullation (1). The offending instances in this case are either copying or merely colourable alterations of they Plaintiff's reports accompanied by blind repetition of obvious errors.
I have no doubt in this case that the contesting Defendant his committed literary piracy on the Plaintiff's periodical, and in this view this suit has to be decreed. The result is that the Plaintiff succeeds, and the Defendant No. 1 will be restrained from pirating from the Calcutta Weekly Notes for the purpose of his publication. He is further restrained from selling or circulating any of the copies of the pirated publication since August 1910. The Defendant is directed to render a full account to the Plaintiff of the pirated issues of the Calcutta Case Law published since August 1910 and of the profits made by their sale. He is further directed to deliver in ??? unsold copies of the ??? Calcutta Case Law ??? August 1910, and ??? The ??? the Plaintiff ??? by joining it as a Defendant up to December 1st, 1913.
Mr. H.N Dutt, Solicitor for the Plaintiff.
Suit decreed.