The Plaintiff may have responded using his characteristic style and skill and his answers
obviously generated a lot of merriment.
The other question is whether it is material to characterise the Plaintiff‟s answers to the various
questions as "a talk or address". There was no formal arrangement that may lead to the
characterisation of the event as a press release. The Plaintiff was surrounded by numerous
persons and asked by several other persons who were not in view of the camera which recorded
the event.
That notwithstanding Words and Phrases Legally Defined adopts several statutory definitions
in the UK of the word "author". The first definition is found under the Copyright Act 1956
section 35 (5) thereof which defines the word "author" in relation to sound recording or a
cinematographic film to mean the maker of the recording or the film. I have not seen any further
meaning in relation to sound recording. Secondly the provision is a statutory. The second
definition of the word "author" which also is apparently based on statutory provisions or with a
statutory basis can be found in Osborn's Concise Law Dictionary 11th edition at page 45 as
follows:
"For copyright purposes, the author is the person who creates the work. This is taken to
be the producer of the sound recording, the producer and principal director of the film,
the person making the broadcast, the publisher in the case of the typographical
arrangement of a published edition."
Notwithstanding the statutory basis of the UK law on sound recordings, it is still useful for
comparative purposes to consider how the issue has been handled in the UK.
In paragraph 113 of Halsbury‟s laws of England fourth edition reissue volume 9 (2), it is written
that:
"in the case of both sound recordings and films the author is taken to be the producer, that
is to say the person who made the arrangements necessary for making the recording or
film, as the case may be, although in the case of films made on or after 1 July 1994 the
principal director is also an author.
The difficulty presented by the definition is the fact that the Plaintiff was recorded not by his
own arrangement but by the Third Party‟s agents. A sound recording is defined by section 2 of
the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act, 2006 to mean any exclusively aural fixation of
sound in a material carrier such as a tape, disc or other similar material but does not include
audiovisual work including sound. The ringtones or caller tunes comprised of sound recordings
and not audiovisual work. The audiovisual work exhibit TPD1 is just evidence of how the
recording was made and the circumstances in which the Plaintiff's voice was recorded in the
question and answer session.
Decision of Hon. Mr. Justice Christopher Madrama
Izama *^*~?+:
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