COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 17 May 1882)

§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF
said, he strongly objected to the Bill as it stood. In the first place, its drafting was very unsatisfactory, and the whole subject was one which ought to be dealt with by the Government. Last year the hon. Member brought in a Bill with 157 clauses, which might have been passed at any time of the morning, had it not been for the operation of the Half-past 12 Rule. The 4th clause of the Bill gave to any person executing any work of art the sole right of reproducing it in any form or material. Now, the present state of the law was this. If an artist sold his picture he might make an arrangement with the purchaser reserving the copyright to himself, otherwise the copyright lapsed. That was a very fair arrangement. But what was now proposed was that purchasers should be entrapped into buying pictures without knowing that the copyright did not belong to them. He could not conceive why a new arrangement should be made for works of art, while the great question of the copyright of literary works 949 was left out of the question. He was anxious that there should be no legislation on copyright in this country until some arrangement was made with foreign countries on the subject. The hon. Gentleman was proceeding to read in succession several clauses of the Bill, and to comment on them, when—

§ MR. SPEAKER
said, that it would be irregular to go through the Bill in that way, clause by clause.

§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF
said, that he would, of course, obey the Speaker's ruling; but he observed that he did not see how it was possible to establish a copyright in photographs. They saw photographs published every day of what were called professional beauties, in every possible attitude. These were more popular matters of sale than the photographs of statesmen; but how were they to say what was copyright in them? A professional beauty might have a favourite attitude in which she sat to one artist. Was she not to be allowed to sit in that attitude to another photographer?