IRISH RE-JOYCE AS COPYRIGHT ACT AMENDED

Alan Cunningham of Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute has brought the furore over the copyright in James Joyce’s Ulysses to the IPKat’s attention. The National Library of Ireland are planning an exhibition of manuscripts of Joyce’s work to coincide with Bloomday, 16 June (the date on which the action in Ulysses in meant to have taken place). However, Joyce’s estate has argued that such a display of the documents could breach its copyright in Joyce’s works. This has caused the Irish Parliament to pass emergency legislation, the Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) Bill 2004, to “remove any doubt as to the right of any person to place literary or artistic works protected by copyright or copies thereof on public exhibition without committing a breach of copyright”.



The IPKat is somewhat startled by all the fuss. He doesn’t think that displaying a copy of a literary work falls within the definition of infringement anyway, unless it counts as a performance of the work. He’s also quite alarmed at the impact the Joyce estate can have as a result of merely intimating that it is contemplating an infringement action.



Bloomsday here, here and here

Kidney recipes here and here