The Canada Copyright Act, 1875 — 38 & 39 Vict. C. 531765
An Act to give effect to an Act of the Parliament of the Dominion of Canada respecting Copyright.
[2nd August 1875.]
Whereas by an Order of Her Majesty in Council, dated the 7th day of July 1868, it was ordered that all prohibitions contained in Acts of the Imperial Parliament against the importing into the Province of Canada, or against the selling, letting out to hire, exposing for sale or hire, or possessing therein foreign reprints of books first composed, written, printed, or published in the United Kingdom, and entitled to copyright therein, should be suspended so far as regarded Canada:
And whereas the Senate and House of Commons of Canada did, in the second session of the third Parliament of the Dominion of Canada, held in the thirty-eighth year of Her Majesty’s reign, pass a Bill intituled “An Act respecting Copyrights,” which Bill has been reserved by the Governor-General for the signification of Her Majesty’s pleasure thereon:
And whereas by the said reserved Bill provision is made, subject to such conditions as in the said Bill are mentioned, for securing in Canada the rights of authors in respect of matters of copyright, and for prohibiting the importation into Canada of any work for which copyright under the said reserved Bill has been secured; and whereas doubts have arisen whether the said reserved Bill may not be repugnant to the said Order in Council, and it is expedient to remove such doubts and to confirm the said Bill:1766
Be it enacted as follows:
Short title of Act.
I. This Act may be cited for all purposes as The Canada Copyright Act, 1875.
Definition of terms.
II. In the construction of this Act the words “book” and “copyright” shall have respectively the same meaning as in the Act of the fifth and sixth years of Her Majesty’s reign, chapter forty-five, intituled “An Act to amend the Law of Copyright.”
Her Majesty may assent to the Bill in schedule.
III. It shall be lawful for Her Majesty in Council to assent to the said reserved Bill, as contained in the schedule to this Act annexed, and if Her Majesty shall be pleased to signify Her assent thereto, the said Bill shall come into operation at such time and in such manner as Her Majesty may by Order in Council direct; anything in the Act of the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth years of the reign of Her Majesty, chapter ninety-three, or in any other Act to the contrary notwithstanding.
Colonial reprints not to be imported into United Kingdom.
IV. Where any book in which, at the time when the said reserved Bill comes into operation, there is copyright in the United Kingdom, or any book in which thereafter there shall be such copyright, becomes entitled to copyright in Canada in pursuance of the provisions of the said reserved Bill, it shall be unlawful for any person, not being the owner, in the United Kingdom, of the copyright in such book, or some person authorised by him, to import into the United Kingdom any copies of such book reprinted or republished in Canada; and for the purposes of such importation the seventeenth section of the said Act of the fifth and sixth years of the reign of Her Majesty, chapter forty-five, shall apply to all such books in the same manner as if they had been reprinted out of the British dominions.
Order in Council of 7th July 1868 to continue in force subject to this Act.
V. The said Order in Council, dated the seventh day of July one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, shall continue in force so far as relates to books which are not entitled to copyright for the time being, in pursuance of the said reserved Bill.