Ill The British model of copyright law and translation [1908-1979]

3.1. Introduction

The copyright regimes implemented in Sri Lanka from 1908 to 1979 mark the first stage of the history of Sri Lankan copyright law. These regimes were modelled entirely on British copyright law. The British model of copyright law that was adopted in Sri Lanka in this period was inimical to timely and affordable translation. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the reasons for this and why this copyright law was implemented in Sri Lanka.

As discussed further in this chapter, the British model of copyright law was first incorporated into domestic statute law in Sri Lanka through the Copyright Ordinance 1908. The model got entrenched in Sri Lanka with the application of the Imperial Copyright Act 19111 The Imperial Copyright Act continued to govern the copyright law of Sri Lanka until the introduction of the Code of Intellectual Property Act 1979 (IP Code).

Both the Copyright Ordinance 1908 and the Imperial Copyright Act 1911 conferred an exclusive right on copyright owners to translate their works without providing for commensurate exceptions to that right. This restricted timely and affordable translation of copyright protected works required for promoting access to scientific and technical knowledge in Sri Lanka.

The British model of copyright law introduced into Sri Lanka was essentially a direct response to the interests of the key stakeholders in the British publishing industry, namely, the British government, publishers, authors and the reading public. To understand the British model of copyright law in Sri Lanka and why it protected translation rights, it is necessary to understand these interests and the extent to which they influenced the protection of translation rights in British copyright law. Therefore, this chapter will examine how the interests of key stakeholders in the British publishing industry influenced the protection of translation rights in British copyright law throughout its history, that is, from the point of the introduction of printing to Britain in the fifteenth century up to the enactment of the Imperial Copyright Act in 1911. The chapter demonstrates

1 See Copyright Ordinance No 20 of 1912 (Sri Lanka). that the reason for British copyright law’s delay in conferring translation rights to British authors until the twentieth century was that translations were seen as an important aspect of public access to knowledge. However, when literary, artistic and scientific activities and book publishing in Britain blossomed (making it a developed country in the field of literature, arts and science), the prominence attached to translations as an important means of promoting public access to knowledge lost its value. Moreover, the new trade interests that persuaded Britain to expand the scope of copyright protection ultimately resulted in the right to translate being recognised as an important and fully fledged exclusive right of the copyright owner.