Month: September 2011

Last week, … [a US] Court rejected Hungary’s motion to dismiss a claim brought against it by the heirs of Baron Mor Lipot Herzog, a well-known Jewish Hungarian art collector.

…

The Court found that (1) the defendants did not dispute that “rights in property” (2) the plaintiffs’ claim that the Herzog Collection was taken in violation of international law was substantial and non-frivolous, and therefore, adequately satisfied the second requirement; and (3) the defendants admitted that the museums and the university (both agencies or instrumentalities of Hungary) were in possession of the pieces of collection identified in the complaint which was sufficient to satisfy the ‘owned or operated’ requirement, ad these bodies were are engaged in “either a regular course of commercial conduct or a particular commercial transaction or act” in the US as of the commencement of the action.

More here: New York Times.

The judgment itself is available here (warning: pdf).

Finally, here is a comprehensive website devoted to the claim.

In the lead judgment in the full Federal Court, Chief Justice Patrick Keane said copyright as defined by Australia’s Copyright Act existed in literary work created by an individual or individuals. Given that, argument about whether or not the Yellow and White Pages directories were literary works – the product of individual intellectual effort – was overrun by the fact that Sensis had taken individuals out of the production process.

Sensis did tell the Federal Court that people contributed to the production process, by using software to extract telephone numbers, for example. The compilation of the listings was, however, overwhelmingly the work of Sensis’s Genesis computer system, Justice Keane said, and ”did not originate from an individual or group of individuals”.

Until Bingham spoke, “the rule of law” meant pretty much what Dicey had said it meant in 1885. Bingham’s definition of that much-used term is now entirely authoritative and will probably remain so for the next 120 years or more. In summary, it is “that all persons and authorities within the state, whether public or private, should be bound by and entitled to the benefit of laws publicly made, taking effect (generally) in the future and publicly administered in the courts.”