Cummins v Bond

Cummins v Bond was a 1927 copyright legal case in England in which it was decided that if a spirit or ghost dictates a work to the living through a medium, then the medium owns the copyright, and not the spirit or a subsequent transcriber.[1][2]

The case

Miss Geraldine Cummins was a medium who sold her services professionally. She used a pen to write down a message by a 1900-year-old spirit, Cleophas, which was addressed to an architect, Mr Bligh Bond, who was present in the session. After she wrote it, Bligh Bond typed the message himself.[3] Mr Bond claimed copyright on the resulting text because it was addressed to him and typed by him.[3]

After two days of court hearings, the court decided that it had no jurisdiction over the afterlife and therefore the copyright holder and sole author is Cummins because she was the one who held the pen.[3]

In the case, a medium as a plaintiff claimed copyright for a work presumably communicated by a 1900-year old spirit, but the court's ruling was that the copyright holder is the spirit and not the medium.[1][2]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 http://pacelegal.com.au/copyright-law/what-is-copyright/
  2. 1 2 http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2005/08/authorship-and-religion.html
  3. 1 2 3 http://www.academia.edu/387291/Writer_Medium_Suffragette_Spy_The_Unseen_Adventures_of_Geraldine_Cummins

External links

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