Peter,
Herein lies the problem..
Because the company has been dissolved more than 20 years (In this case
1972) there are no records of the company at companies house. except a last
registered address and a company number.
Companies house only transferred their records to microfiche in 1975 and
besides the name and company number, they have no details of any companies
or their history, e.g Directors, Secretary's etc..prior to 1975 (I have had
a full archive search conducted)
The company wasnt liquidated it just ceased trading.
So trying to prove to the BV dept that this company owned the copyrights at
the time of dissolution has become an impossibility as they wont recognise
the company's existence.
So my point is this, who owns the copyright? and could this effectively
place it in the public domain by default if no one can prove ownership?
In this case another publisher has already started using the character, claiming that "it was in the public domain" Is this possible and more to the point is it Illegal?
Regards
Jake
Jake,
Forgive the late intervention - I haven't been looking at my CNI folder recently.
I don't see how the directors or shareholders could own any assets of the company, unless they acquired them from the liquidator. Mike's statement about whether the directors can be found isn't quite right - the authorities might be in communication with the directors, but still need to strike the company off if it's defunct.
In practice, liquidators dispose of company assets without paying much attention to what they have, so it's quite likely that someone acquired a large bundle of assets - perhaps all the assets - of the company from the liquidator, including copyright, without anyone actually mentioning IP specifically. That is the first part of your litigator's statement. The other part - the part you don't get - doesn't sound right at all, for the reasons I stated at the outset. If there was no disposition of the copyright, whether specifically or along with a load of other stuff, then the company remained the owner, and when the company was removed from the register of companies (you can check its status on the Companies House web site) any remaining assets would go BV. The BV department at Treasury Solicitors, in my experience, isn't very hot on what to do with intellectual property, but the chances are that they have it in this instance.
Regards
Peter Groves
Bircham Dyson Bell, Solicitors, 50 Broadway, London SW1H 0BL
020 7170 0327
-----Original Message-----
From: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property
[mailto:CNI-COPYRIGHT[_at_]cni.org] On Behalf Of Danceland
Sent: 08 March 2006 00:16
To: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property
Subject: [CNI-(C)] Re: rights for defunct newspaper?
Good point Mike,
But what if the company just ceased trading and was dissolved with no
debts?
I think that's when BV applies, However I have also been told that it is
the BV department who should sell the assets just after dissolution.
I have contacted them on this and they have said "any assets that are
unreleased at the time of a company's dissolution belong to the treasury
solicitor's BV dept."
However I have also heard from a litigator that "if the publishers owned
those rights these would have been assets of the company upon its
dissolution, If the rights were sold off then then you will have to
trace the new owners.
If no such arrangements were made it is likely that those assets will
rest with the Directors of the publishing company (depending upon the
terms of the company set up") I dont get the last part??
So I'm still in the dark.
Who do you think would have the strongest claim to the I.P. copyright
assets then?
Would it be the "BV" dept or would it be the former director/shareholder
of the company?
Cheers
Jake
P.S. My server was down today so if anyone responded to my query then please could you resend it as I really need the advice. Many Thanks.
> In-Reply-To: <list-13158027[_at_]cni.org>
> "Wallace J.McLean" <ag737[_at_]freenet.carleton.ca> wrote:
>> I am neither a Canadian nor a lawyer, but: it wouldn't be in
copyright
> law, it'd be in corporate law.
>
> And how often does bona vacantia get used? In the UK, when a company
is
> insolvent a receiver is appointed, with a duty to realise the assets
and
> distribute cash among the creditors - so almost always the rights
would be
> sold on, unless the receiver were incompetent.
>
> So does _bv_ apply only when a company ceases to file returns, the
> directors cannot be found, and no-one initiates insolvency
proceedings?
>
> Mike
>
>
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