COPYRIGHT statutory enfranchisement of copyhold, first established by the Copyhold Act, 1841, has been consolidated by the Copyhold Act, 1894. Owing to the incidents attaching to land “holden by copy of court roll according to the custom of the manor ” in the shape of fines and heriots, the inability to grant a lease for a term exceeding a year, and to the peculiar rules as to descent, waste, dower, curtesy, alienation, and other matters, varying often from manor to manor and widely differing from the uniform law applicable to land in general, enfranchisement, or the conversion of land held by copyhold tenure into freehold, is often desired. This could and may still be effected at common law, but only by agreement on the part of both the lord and the tenant. Moreover, it was subject to other disadvantages. The cost fell on the tenant, and the land when enfranchised was subject to the encumbrances attaching to the manor, and so an investigation into the lord’s title was necessary. In 1841 an Act was passed to provide a statutory method of enfranchisement, removing some of the barriers existing at common law; but the machinery created was only availfxof* able where both lord and tenant were in agreement. The Copyhold Act, 1852, went further, and for the first time introduced the principle of compulsory enfranchisement on the part of either party. By the Copyhold Act, 1894, which now governs statutory enfranchisement, the former Copyhold Acts, 1841-87, were repealed, and the law was consolidated and improved. Enfranchisement is now effected under this Act, though in certain cases it is also to be obtained under special Acts, such as the Land Clauses Consolidation Act, 1848; and the old common-law method with all its disadvantages is still open. The Copyhold Act, 1894, deals both with compulsory and with voluntary enfranchisement. In either case the sanction of the Board of Agriculture must be obtained; and powers are bestowed on it to decide questions arising on enfranchisement, with an appeal to the High Court. The actual enfranchisement, where it is compelled by one of the parties, is effected by an award made by the board; in the case of a voluntary enfranchisement it is completed by deed. Under the Act it is open to both lord and tenant to compel enfranchisement, though the expenses are to be borne by the party requiring it. The compensation to the lord, in the absence of an agreement, is ascertained under the direction of the board on a valuation made by a valuer or valuers appointed by the lord and tenant; and may be paid either in a gross sum or by way of an annual rent charge issuing out of the land enfranchised, and equivalent to interest at the rate of 4 per cent, on the amount fixed upon as compensation. This rent charge is redeemable on six months’ notice at twenty-five times its annual amount. The tenant, even if he is the compelling party, may elect either method; but the lord has not the same option, and where the enfranchisement is at his instance, unless there is either an agreement to the contrary or a notice on the part of the tenant to exercise his option, the compensation
239
is a rent charge. Power is conferred on the lord to purchase the tenant’s interest where a change in the condition of the land by enfranchisement would prejudice his mansion house, park, or gardens; while on the other hand, in the interest of the public or the other tenants, the board is authorized to continue conditions of user for their benefit. So far the provisions relating to compulsory enfranchisement have been dealt with; but even in the case of a voluntary agreement the lord and tenant are only entitled to accept enfranchisement with the consent of the Board of Agriculture. The consideration in addition to a gross sum or a rent charge may consist of a conveyance of land, or of a right to mines or minerals, or of a right to waste in lands belonging to the manor, or partly in one way and partly in another. The effect of enfranchisement, whether it be voluntary or compulsory, is that the land becomes of freehold tenure subject to the same laws relating to descent, dower, and curtesy as are applicable to freeholds, and so freed from Borough English, Gavelkind (save in Kent), and other customary modes of descent, and from any custom relating to dower, or free-bench, or tenancy by curtesy. Nevertheless, the lord is entitled to escheat in the event of failure of heirs, just as if the land had not been enfranchised. The land is held under the same title as that under which it was held at the date at which the enfranchisement takes effect; but it is not subject to any estate right, charge, or interest affecting the manor. Every mortgage of the copyhold estate in the land enfranchised becomes a mortgage of the freehold, subject though to the priority of the rent charge paid in compensation under the Act. All rights and interests of any person in the land and all leases remain binding in the same manner. On the other hand the tenant’s rights of common still continue attached to the freehold; and, without express consent in writing of the lord or tenant respectively, the right of either in mines or minerals shall not be affected by the change. Some other changes are also made by the Act. No creation of new copyholds by granting land out of the waste is permissible, save with the consent of the Board of Agriculture; and it would seem as if the Act had rendered the customary court a very shadowy institution by enacting that a valid admittance of a new copyholder may be made without holding a court. Under the earlier Acts, machinery to free the land from the burden of the old rents, fines, and heriots was set up, commuting them into a rent charge or a fine. Commutation, however, is never compulsory, and differs from enfranchisement in that, whereas by enfranchisement the land in question is converted into freehold, by commutation it still continued parcel of the manor, though subject to a rent charge or a fine, as might have been agreed. The ordinary laws of descent, dower, and curtesy were, however, substituted for the customs in relation to these matters incidental to the land in question before commutation, and the timber became the tenant’s. (jno. s.)
COPYRIGHT. SINCE 1877 the system of international copyright has been remodelled by the Bern Convention; the United States has conferred a species of international copyright on foreign authors; and considerable changes have been made in the English law of copyright. So far as the English law of copyright in books is concerned the chief developments have been by decisions of the Courts explaining the exact limits to which protection extends.
The most marked and certain progress has been in the application of the law of copyright to the periodical press (in 1877 it was not clear whether a newspaper was for all purposes within the Copyright Act), in order to protect within reasonable limits the labour and expenditure of newspapers that obtain for the public the earliest news and arrange it for publication. The old common - law theory that a perpetual copyright existed over literary
