Kinematograph year book (1948)

546 Thp K in ematograph Year Book. Transport Act, 1947. This Act provides for the establishment of a British Transport Commission concerned with transport and certain other related matters, to specify their powers and duties, to provide for the transfer to them of undertakings, parts of undertakings, property, rights, obligations and liabilities, to amend the law relating to transport, inland waterways, harbours and port facilities, to make certain consequential provision as to income tax, to make provision as to pensions and gratuities in the case of certain persons who become officers of the Minister of Transport, and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid. Town and Country Planning Act, 1947. This Act makes fresh provision for planning the development and use of land, for the grant of permission to develop land and for other powers of control over the use of land ; to confer on public authorities additional powers in respect of the acquisition and development of land for planning and other purposes, and to amend the law relating to compensation in respect of the compulsory acquisition of land ; to provide for payments out of central funds in respect of depreciation occasioned by planning restrictions ; to secure the recovery for the benefit of the community of development charges in respect of certain new development ; to provide for the payment of grants out of central funds in respect of expenses of local authorities in connection with the matters aforesaid; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid. Companies Act, 1947. This Act amends the law relating to companies and unit trusts and to dealing in securities and in connection therewith to amend the law of bankruptcy and the law relating to the registration of business names. Control of Employment Act, 1947. This Act provides that all men between the ages of 18 and 50 inclusive and women between the ages of 18 and 40 inclusive must get their engagements through the approved offices of the Ministry of Labour and National Service and approved Employment Agencies, with certain exemptions. COPYRIGHT. Under the Copyright Act, 1911, the owner of a literary or dramatic work has the sole right to make a kinematograph film or other contrivance by which the same may be mechanically performed, and to authorise such acts. Before the Act it was held that there was no such right (Kamo v. Pathe Freres, 100 L.T. 260). Infringement is doing without the owner's consent anything which conflicts with the owner's rights. It includes selling, or letting for hire, or by way of trade exposing or offering for sale or hire, or by way of trade exhibiting in public or importing for sale or hire any work which infringes copyright or would do so if the work had been made in the country where infringement takes place. It also includes the case of a person who, for his private profit, permits a theatre or place of entertainment to be used for the public performance of a work without the owner's consent unless the person so doing was not aware and had no reasonable ground for suspecting that it was an infringement. Copyright lasts during the life of the author and fifty years after his death. In the case of photographs, it is fifty years from the making of the original negative. All transfers or licences must be in writing and signed by the owner or his agent. The author cannot assign his copyright for longer than twentyfive years after his death. A compulsory licence can be obtained twenty-five or thirty years after the author's death, but this provision cannot apply before 1936 at the earliest. The Privy Council has the power to grant a compulsory licence at any time after the author's death if it is proved that the work has been published or