Lesson plan
Copyright performance
The copyright performance of a play was a first public performance in the United Kingdom, staged purely for the purpose of securing the author's copyright over the text. There was a fear that, if a play's text was published, or a rival production staged, before its official preview or premiere, 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 and gives useful public notice to possible infringers." The practice was common in the decades after the Berne Convention of 1886; the United States was not a signatory, and plays first staged there were ineligible for copyright in the United Kingdom. George Bernard Shaw's The Philanderer 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, but restored in the printed version.…
Article summary
The copyright performance of a play was a first public performance in the United Kingdom, staged purely for the purpose of securing the author's copyright over the text. There was a fear that, if a play's text was published, or a rival production staged, before its official preview or premiere, 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 and gives useful public notice to possible infringers." The practice was common in the decades after the Berne Convention of 1886; the United States was not a signatory, and plays first staged there were ineligible for copyright in the United Kingdom. George Bernard Shaw's The Philanderer 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, but restored in the printed version.…
Key claims
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.