- (1.) This is a plaintiff s appeal arising out of a suit for damages and an injunction on the ground that the plaintiff s copyright has been infringed. The plaintiff is the widow of the late Professor Marshall, whose Treatise "Principles of Economics" is a well known textbook. The Edn. 4, of that book was published in 1898 and the Edn. 5, was brought out in 1907. In 1908 Rev. Dr. King, the Principal of a College brought out a treatise which he called "A Digest of Marshall s Principles of Economics." This was printed and published by a press in Ajmere. No objection appears to have been taken on behalf of any agent of Professor Marshall at that time. In 1912, the defendant, Ram Narain Lal, purchased the supposed copyright of this Digest from Dr. King. By now Professor Marshall s book has gone into several editions, there being an Edn. 8 of 1927, which was filed in this case. Ram Narain Lal, defendant, reprinted this Digest of 1908, and published it in 1926. It is in respect of this reprinting of the earlier edition of Dr. King s Digest that the present action has been brought.
(2.) The defence was that Dr. King s Digest was a bona fide and fair abridgment of Professor Marshall s book and was protected under the law and that there had been no infringement of any copyright at all. It was also pleaded that the claim was barred by limitation because the infringement, if any, was committed more than three years before the suit. The learned District Judge who heard the case came to the conclusion that the claim must fail. He examined the Digest along with the original book and considered that in a sense it was an abridgment of the Principles of Economics, but it was something more condensed still and it was in his opinion more like a key to the book and a synopsis of it. He pointed out that the original book consisted of 858 closely printed pages including appendices, whereas the Digest consisted of only 77 pages and he also pointed out that the number of words in a page in the Digest were nearly half of those in the original book. The learned Judge thought that this Digest was intended to be a guide and not a substitute for the prescribed textbook and that it involved labour, time, knowledge of the subject and sound judgment in its preparation.
(3.) The learned Judge referred to various authorities, particularly a judgment of their Lordships of the Privy Council in Macmillan & Co. Ltd. v. Cooper 1924 P.C. 75. The learned Judge referred to the discussion of the subject in Copinger s "Law of Copyright" and point, ed out that there was authority for the view that a fair abridgment in which intellectual effort was employed was not a piracy and that an abridgment which is a condensation of the views of the author adopting the same arrangement and containing an epitome of the work is distinguishable from a mere compilation consisting of selected extracts. He noted that Copinger in his book had pointed out that there was a tendency in later cases to depart from-the stringency of the earlier decisions and to recognize the principle that an author is entitled to the direct as well as indirect fruits of his labour, but as there was EO modern decision as to the rights of an abridger the learned Judge held that the decided cases permitted a fair abridgment of the work. Belying on the statement of the law in the Supplement to Halsbury s Laws of England of 1287 he held that the author of an original work could not prevent the publication of any fair and bona fide abridgment. The plea of limitation does not appear to have been pressed before him and he accordingly expressed no opinion on this question. The finding of the learned District Judge is challenged on behalf of the plaintiff in appeal.;