The negative provision in this section was inserted in the new copyright law apparently to differentiate it from patent law with the intent of preventing the proprietor of a copyrighted work from controlling the conditions of sale after copies had left his possession. It is doubtful what, if any, effect this provision may have, as the phrase "lawfully obtained" would scarcely have the result of limiting and annulling contractual conditions of sale. The innocent purchase of a stolen book would not relieve the purchaser from the necessity of returning the stolen property to its proper owner, although as far as intent, knowledge, and payment are concerned, he would have "lawfully obtained" it.
The scope of copyright cannot be extended to cover a business or other scheme described in a copyrighted book, as was held in 1906 in Burk _v_. Johnson by the Circuit Court of Appeals in denying relief under copyright protection to the originator of a mutual burial association who copyrighted the articles of association.
The new British measure defines copyright to mean "the sole right to produce or reproduce the work or any substantial part thereof in any material form whatsoever and in any language," thus assuring rights of translation hitherto imperfect or doubtful; "to perform, or in the case of a lecture to deliver, the work or any substantial part thereof in public; if the work is unpublished, to publish the work"; and specifically includes the sole right of dramatization (from an "artistic," as well as other non-dramatic work), novelization, and reproduction by mechanical means (though with compulsory license provision as to reproduced music). A copyright may be assigned or licensed "either wholly or partially, and either generally or subject to limitations to any particular country, and either for the whole term of the copyright or for any part thereof."
"Copyright or any similar right in any literary dramatic musical or artistic work, whether published or unpublished," is expressly denied "otherwise than under and in accordance with the provisions of this Act" or other statutory enactment; and thus common law seems to be totally abrogated. Hitherto common law property in an unpublished work has been absolute and co-existed with statutory remedies up to publication, as was strongly upheld in 1908 in Mansell _v_. Valley Printing Co. in the English Court of Appeal. As to published works, the new code continues the settled law reiterated as late as 1910 in Monckton _v_. The Gramaphone Co., where Justice Joyce in the Chancery Division denied the common law claim of the author of a song printed with prohibition of mechanical production, on the ground that after publication there was no copyright except as given by statute.