tiously obtained. Whether the work is literary or artistic or commonplace, whether the product of labor is intellectual or tan gible property, the common law recognizes the right of the owner to protection against publication. The Copyright Acts are lev elled against the reproduction of published works, but do not prevent a publication of an abstract, a catalogue, or digest, for such works " may be liable to be translated, abridged, analysed, exhibited in morsels and complimented." But the protection afforded to unpub lished products is greater. The Vice-Chan cellor Knight Bruce said, in Prince Albert v. Strange, 2 DeGex & Smale, p. 689 : " I claim leave to doubt whether, as to prop erty of a private nature which the owner without infringing on the right of another may and does retain in a state of privacy, it is certain that a person who without the owner's consent, express or implied, acquires a knowledge of it can lawfully avail himself of the knowledge so acquired to publish without his consent a deseription of the prop erty." In appeal, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Cottenham, said that " privacy was the right invaded in the case, and that a man was entitled to be protected in the exclusive use and enjoyment of that which was exclusively his." To quote again from Messrs. Warren and Brandeis : " The protection afforded by the common law to. the author of any writing is entirely independent of its pecuniary value, its intrinsic merits, or of any intention to publish the same, and of course also wholly independent of the material, if any, upon which and the mode in which the thought or sentiment is expressed." The proper ground upon which the right to protection for thoughts and sentiments expressed in words or in writing or in works of art must rest is, that there is a right to privacy against the infringement of which the law must afford relief. If there is a right to privacy for thoughts, feelings and sentiments, it is enti tled to protection, whether they find expres
sion in writing, speech or conduct. As observed in the article from which we have quoted so largely already, " If the invasion of privacy constitutes a legal injury, the elements for demanding redress exist, since the value of mental suffering caused by an act wrongful in itself is recognized as a basis for compensation. The right of one who has remained a private individual to prevent his public portraiture, presents the simplest case for such extension; the right to protect one's self from pen-portraiture, from a dis cussion by the press of one's private affairs, would be a more important and far reaching one. If casual and unimportant statements in a letter, if handiwork however inartistic and valueless, if possessions of all sorts, are protected not only against reproduction but against description and enumeration, how much more should the acts and sayings of a man in his social and domestic relations be guarded from ruthless publicity," when all the appliances of civilization are tending to make a knowledge of each man's belongings the property of the public and the feelings of man become more sensitive to publicity require even greater protection than his phy sical safety. The absence of malice and the truth of the publication can of course be no defence to an action, for the gist of the complaint is the fact of the publication itself. As pointed out by Judge O'Brien in the case of Mrs. Schuyler, there is nothing to prevent the publication of matter of public or general interest, or where the owner has himself published it or impliedly sought publication by inviting the public attention by his con duct. According to the maxim ubi jus ibi remedium, the recognition of the right in volves a remedy for its violation, which may be damages for the breach or an injunction to prevent the infraction of the right. It may seem intolerable that any thing said or done by any individual should be so far protected that any communication of it by the hearer or observer which is not ex
