The copyright performance of a

play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * Pla ...

was a first public performance in the United Kingdom, staged purely for the purpose of securing the author's

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

over the text. There was a fear that, if a play's text was published, or a rival production staged, before its official

preview Preview may refer to: Theatre, film, television * Preview (subscription service), an early subscription television service in the United States * Preview (theatre), a public performance of a theatrical show before the official opening * Previe ...

premiere A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition. A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its first ...

, then the author's rights would be lost; to forestall these abuses, the practice arose of staging a copyright performance, which was notionally public, but in practice staged hastily before an invited audience with no publicity and no regard for the artistic quality of the acting or production. One legal authority wrote that such a performance, "though probably not necessary to fulfill any legal requirement, permits registration of first performance at

Stationers' Hall The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (until 1937 the Worshipful Company of Stationers), usually known as the Stationers' Company, is one of the livery companies of the City of London. The Stationers' Company was formed in ...

and gives useful public notice to possible infringers." The practice was common in the decades after the

Berne Convention The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, was an international assembly held in 1886 in the Swiss city of Bern by ten European countries with the goal to agree on a set of leg ...

of 1886; the United States was not a signatory, and plays first staged there were uncopyrightable in the United Kingdom.

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

's ''

The Philanderer ''The Philanderer'' is a play by George Bernard Shaw. It was written in 1893 but the strict British censorship laws at the time meant that it was not produced on stage until 1902. It is one of the three plays Shaw published as ''Plays Unpleasa ...

'' had a copyright performance hastily arranged in 1898 just before its publication in ''Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant''. The play's more controversial scenes were cut from the performance to secure the approval required from the

Lord Chamberlain The Lord Chamberlain of the Household is the most senior officer of the Royal Household of the United Kingdom, supervising the departments which support and provide advice to the Sovereign of the United Kingdom while also acting as the main cha ...

, but restored in the printed version. Many less commercially viable plays were never performed other than in a single copyright performance.

Novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

s sometimes arranged copyright performances of dramatisations of their works; a single 1897 performance of ''

Dracula ''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...

'' enabled the widow of

Bram Stoker Abraham Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) was an Irish author who is celebrated for his 1897 Gothic horror novel '' Dracula''. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Sir Henry Irving and busine ...

to sue

F. W. Murnau Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe; December 28, 1888March 11, 1931) was a German film director, producer and screenwriter. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at t ...

in 1922 when his unlicensed cinematic adaptation ''

Nosferatu ''Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror'' (German: ''Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens'') is a 1922 silent German Expressionist horror film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife ...

'' was shown in Britain. Copyright performances were rendered unnecessary by the

Copyright Act 1911 The Copyright Act 1911, also known as the Imperial Copyright Act of 1911, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (UK) which received Royal Assent on 16 December 1911. The act established copyright law in the UK and the British Empir ...

, which secured the author's rights over unpublished and unperformed works and derivatives.

References

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Footnotes

United Kingdom copyright law Theatre in the United Kingdom {{UK-theat-stub