§1 (2)
matters specifically mentioned in the paragraphs following the definition as being part of the copyright. Even as it stands, however, it is conceived that it will not affect the generality of the right of "performance" in respect of all other works. Thus, subject to the limitation contained in sect. 2 (1) (vi) as to the reading or recitation of reasonable extracts, it is submitted that it is an infringement of copyright under the Act to read any literary work in public, even although such work does not come within the definition of the word "lecture."
Existing law.—There is no statutory exclusive right of delivering a lecture. The Lectures Copyright Act, 1835[1], protects the right of printing and publishing only. A lecture is protected at common law so long as it is unpublished[2]. It is not published merely by delivery to a class of students in a university or college, and if any one were to publish or deliver such lecture without the author's consent, the author could stop him under the common law right[2]. But if the lecture is delivered by the author in a public place his common law right is divested. As such delivery did not vest copyright under the statutes isolating to books, some protection was required until such time as the author should publish his lecture in print, and the Lectures Copyright Act, 1835[1], was devised so as to preserve to the author, who had delivered his lecture in public, the exclusive right of afterwards printing and publishing it. A condition precedent to protection under the Act IS the delivering of a written notice to two justices living within five miles of the place where the lecture is to be delivered, at least two days before the delivery of the lecture, and the Act does not apply to any lecture or lectures delivered in any public school or college, or in accordance with any gift, endowment, or foundation. The delivery, however, of the last-mentioned class of lecture is not necessarily a delivery in public so as to divest the common law right, and therefore the publication of such lectures may be restrained at common law[3].
"If the work is unpublished to publish the work." The meaning of publication is defined in the next subsection as being the issue of copies of the work to the public. Thus, ,in an unpublished work, the proprietary right includes the exclusive right of (1) production or reproduction; (2) performance in public; (3) issue of copies to the public. It will be observed that it does not
