Cases

Christoffer v Poseidon Film Distributors Ltd

Held

The claimant’s script was an original literary work even though it was based on the story by Homer; it was different in form and detail to Homer’s work. The claimant had not copied it from the children’s book. The reworking by a modern writer of an old story did not prevent the new work being “original” within the meaning of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. All the payments the defendant had made to the claimant were in respect of other scripts and not the Cyclops script. The defendant had infringed the claimant’s copyright. Copying a literary work included taking the content of the work or a substantial part of it and reproducing it in another.

Also