Series Star Chart comprised 19 programs before the CBC cancelled the program, as it was entitled to do in the contract.
Three years later the CBC produced a series called Good Rockin’ Tonite.
Hutton alleged CBC copied his concept and creative elements and breached his copyright.
Findings:
The format of the two series was different, SC was more of a variety show whereas GRT was more in the nature of a rock magazine show.
There was found to be no infringement of copyright.
Was SC truly a dramatic work and entitled as such to protection under the Act?
There must be a story, a thread of consecutively related events, either narrated or presented by dialogue or action or both to be a dramatic composition.
Concept of “Music Central” with the assistants gathering info for the host using the computer, and the introduction of performances on three different stages, lent enough dramatic incident and seminal storyline to qualify as a dramatic work.
No equivalent in GRT to the SC story line.
From Seltzer v. Sunbrock
In order to infringe, under the Copyright Act the production on the stage must obviously tell the same story as the copyrighted drama.
If it tells another story or acts another sequence of events, it is outside the protection afforded the registered work.
Not much of a story, but only thing that lends dramatic incident to the programmes. GRT tells no story at all.
Originality
s 2 of the Act, it is the arrangement or acting form or the combination of incidents represented which give the work an original character and which are thereby afforded protection by the Act, not the idea behind the arrangement, form or incidents.
Distinction between idea and form of expression was considered in Kantel v. Frank E. Grant, Nisbet & Auld Ltd.
Copyright Acts are not concerned with ideas or the originality of ideas - in which there is no copyright: it is the language in which the idea is expressed which is the only thing protected, and it is that to which “original” in the Act relates.
“Music Central” constituted the “arrangement or acting form or the combination of incidents represented” which gave SC its original character.
Just because GRT had no elements that would qualify as a dramatic work, doesn’t mean it couldn’t have infringed on SC.
Musical work was changed in 1993 to a manner that no longer requires a musical work, including a song, to be any combination of melody and harmony, or either of them, printed, reduced to writing or otherwise graphically produced or reproduced in order to qualify for copyright as a musical work.
Kantel v. Frank E. Grant, Nisbet & Auld Ltd.
Plaintiff was an author and producer.
Employed by the defendant to prepare a radio presentation, referred to as a ‘sketch’, involving a celebrity character, “Uncle Bob”, who broadcast regularly presenting a “Sunshine Club” for infant listeners.
The defendant used the sketch to advertise its products.
The defendant subsequently cancelled the series, then later broadcasted a similar sketch that was found to be an infringement of the plaintiff’s copyright as a dramatic work.
Lots of facts, the sketch in question must be held to constitute a dramatic work within the meaning of copyright law.
Clearly had a dramatic composition.
“From a perusal of decided cases wherein copyright in works has been upheld, I am led to the conclusion that there is enough of original literary and dramatic work in the sketch to support that plaintiff’s claim to copyright” though the judge was inclined in the opposite direction during the trial.
Compilation means:
a work resulting from the selection or arrangements of literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works or of parts thereof, or
a work resulting from the selection or arrangement of data.
Green v. Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand
Appellant is a well known personality in the entertainment world.
Author, presenter and compere of a talent show.
Broadcasting corporation of NZ did the same show, same name.
The protection which copyright gives creates a monopoly and “there must be certainty in the subject-matter of such monopoly in order to avoid injustice to the rest of the world”. - Tate v. Fullbrook
In this case, the subject matter of copyright claimed for the dramatic format of the show is conspicuously lacking in certainty.
A dramatic woe must have sufficient unity to be capable of performance and that the feature claimed as constituting the “format” of a television show, being unrelated to each other except as accessories to be used in the presentation of some other dramatic r musical performance, lack that essential characteristic.
