Surinder Singh’s Scottish Studies

This is off-topic, and not quite topical, but I think it’s interesting and I haven’t seen it discussed elsewhere.

Universities in Scotland do not charge tuition fees to full-time undergraduate students, provided they are resident in Scotland before they start their course and are not resident here solely in order to attend university, or in the case of under 25s, provided their parents are resident here and not solely in order that their child attend university.

Citizens of other EU member states must be treated equally in accordance with the right to free movement of labour within the EU. This was established by the European Court of Justice in 1986, in Gravier v Liege, where it was held that access to higher education formed part of the right to free movement of labour and therefore there cannot be discrimination against nationals of other member states who are moving across borders in order to access higher education. It has been clarified that this applies only to tuition itself, and discrimination against non-residents is permitted in provision of help for student cost of living. Therefore citizens of other EU member states are entitled to move to Scotland in order to attend university and be treated the same as long term Scottish residents for the purposes of tuition fees, while people from other parts of the UK must notionally pay a fee and later pay a graduate contribution to this.

Is there any way for people within a member state to gain the same right? In other words, is there any way for students from England to attend a Scottish university on the same terms as a Scottish or non-British EU student? Well, it emerged last year that some students from Northern Ireland, most of whose inhabitants are at least entitled to hold both British and Irish nationality, were applying to Scottish universities as Irish students, and were therefore entitled to be treated the same as Scottish students on the basis that they were citizens of another EU member state. Indeed it is possible to acquire Irish nationality by virtue of the birth of one’s grandparents in Ireland, and there are many such grandchildren living in England as well, so this route could be open to many people. However, the Scottish Government announced that they would legislate to prevent this.

The legal basis for preventing this is, to my understanding, the McCarthy decision of the ECJ. This involved a British woman who married a Jamaican man and was unsuccessful in getting the appropriate visa for him to live with her in the UK. She then applied for Irish nationality on the basis that her parent or grandparent was born in Ireland. It is a well established principle of European law, that as part of the right to free movement of labour, an EU citizen has the right to live and work in another member state, and to be accompanied in doing so by their spouse and children, even if their spouse and children are not themselves EU citizens. Ms McCarthy therefore sought to have her husband’s right to live with her in the UK recognised by the Home Office. The Home Office didn’t accept this though. They argued that as a British citizen who’d lived her whole life in the UK and was currently living in the UK, she couldn’t take advantage of the European treaty rights to free movement of labour simply because she also held another nationality that she hadn’t really used. The case went all the way to the ECJ, who decided in favour of the Home Office. In addition to the changes proposed by the Scottish Government, the Home Office also changed the immigration rules to implement this decision.

There is, however, another way for citizens of a member state to acquire the right to be treated as if they are citizens of another member state when in their own country.

The Surinder Singh case was decided by the ECJ in 1992. Surinder Singh was an Indian national who married a British woman, in Bradford. They both subsequently lived and worked in Germany. After their divorce, the authorities sought his deportation. He challenged this, and the case ended up in the ECJ. The finding of the Court was that Mr Singh’s wife, having engaged in economic activity in a member state of which she was not a citizen, was entitled to be treated as if she were an EU migrant arriving in the UK when she returned home, and her husband therefore had the right to live and work in the UK as if he were married to a non-British EU citizen. The Court’s reasoning was that a “national of a Member State might be deterred from leaving his country of origin in order to pursue an activity as an employed or self-employed person as envisaged by the Treaty in the territory of another Member State if, on returning to the Member State of which he is a national in order to pursue an activity there as an employed or self-employed person, the conditions of his entry and residence were not at least equivalent to those which he would enjoy under the Treaty or secondary law in the territory of another Member State.”

So is this of general application, or does it only apply to spouses and immigration? A case of interest is Wallonia v Flanders. This case was brought by the Walloon Government against the Flemish Government, in Belgium. (By way of an extremely simplified outline, Belgium is a union of 2 nations, Wallonia, which speaks French, and Flanders, which speaks Dutch, each with their own government and parliament, in addition to the federal Belgian Parliament and Government.) The Flemish Government was providing a particular social security benefit to people who were resident in Flanders, but not to people working in Flanders but resident elsewhere. Among the questions raised was whether EU rights to free movement should be applied to movement between parts of a member state. This could also have had interesting implications for the UK had the ECJ agreed. The Court did not, reaffirming that Belgian residents of other parts of Belgium had no right to equal treatment in access to this benefit, since this was an internal matter for the member state. However, the Court did rule, based on the treaty provisions guaranteeing free movement of labour, that access to the benefit could not be restricted in a way that discriminated against citizens of other member states, merely because this was a matter devolved to the Flemish Government which is tasked with providing services to the people of Flanders. Quoting the opinion of the ECJ’s Advocate General, the Court said that “the Court has consistently held that a Member State cannot plead provisions, practices or situations prevailing in its domestic legal order, including those resulting from the constitutional organisation of that State, to justify the failure to observe obligations arising under Community law”. Furthermore, and this is the key point for the purposes of this article, access could not be restricted so as to discriminate against Belgians, regardless of residence, who had exercised their free movement rights within the EU, i.e. their Surinder Singh rights.

Read together with the Gravier decision, this strongly suggests that a student from England or Wales who wished to take advantage of the Scottish fee system for universities could simply take a year out, work in a bar in Ibiza or Dublin for a while, then apply to a Scottish University declaring that they were invoking their Surinder Singh rights. I wondered if this was a route that hadn’t been anticipated by the Government, but when I looked at the (extremely hard to follow) Education (Fees) (Scotland) Regulations 2011, it’s right there in paragraph 10 of Schedule 1. Nevertheless, and despite the publicity given to the other route, I haven’t heard of this being used so far.

References

eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:61983CJ0293:EN:HTML

eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:61990CJ0370:EN:HTML

eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:62006J0212:EN:HTML

eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:62009J0434:EN:HTML

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23029195

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-19600241

www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/news/changes-imm-eea-regs.pdf

www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2011/389/regulation/3/made

www.ukcisa.org.uk/International-Students/Fees--finance/Home-or-Overseas-fees/Scotland-Higher-Education/#

Reality Island

How real is reality TV and what are the legal implications? The idea behind a French TV show called Ile de la Tentation, Temptation Island (derived from a US show, and not in fact always on an island), was –

“quatre couples non mariés et non pacsés, sans enfant, testent leurs sentiments réciproques lors d’un séjour d’une durée de douze jours sur une île exotique, séjour pendant lequel ils sont filmés dans leur quotidien, notamment pendant les activités (plongée, équitation, ski nautique, voile, etc...) qu’ils partagent avec des célibataires de sexe opposé. A l’issue de ce séjour, les participants font le point de leurs sentiments envers leur partenaire. Il n’y a ni gagnant, ni prix.”

which translates as –

“Four unmarried couples without children test their feelings for one another during a stay lasting 12 days on an exotic island, a stay during which they are filmed in their daily life, particularly during activities (such as diving, horse riding, water skiing and sailing etc) that they take part in with single people of the opposite sex. At the end of their stay, the participants take stock of their feelings for their partner. There is neither winner nor prize.”

Fifty-three participants from the 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 series brought legal proceedings against the TF1 channel. They argued that they should have been classified as employees and as performers, with all the associated rights in terms of employment and intellectual property law. For example, performers have the right to remuneration, the right to have their permission sought to record their performance, and moral rights such as the right to be identified and not have the performance treated in a derogatory way. The same rights exist in the UK.

The case reached the Versailles Court of Appeal, which held that the participants were employees but not performers. Both sides then appealed to the Cour de Cassation, TF1 appealed the finding that the participants were employees and the participants appealed the finding that they were not performers.

TF1 argued that for there to be a contract of employment, the employee had to have been hired to accomplish a task for the benefit of the employer, and that someone who allowed themselves to be filmed while giving their opinions during recreational activities without being asked to do anything in particular, wasn’t doing work. The Court of Appeal had said that what the participants had done for TF1 had had as its end product something of economic value, namely the television programme. TF1 also pointed out that the contract the participants signed said that they participated for personal not professional reasons. The Cour de Cassation said that whether or not a contract of employment exists depends on the facts of the situation, not on the intentions of the parties. The evidence was that in fact there was a “bible” setting out what would happen each day, there were retakes of scenes and interviews where the interviewee was led into saying what was expected of them. Their clothes were also chosen for them. For these reasons, because the activities being filmed were not part of their normal daily lives, and because they were contributing to the creation of a product, the television series, with economic value, the Cour de Cassation held that the Court of Appeal had been correct to consider the participants employees.

A performer for the purposes of the intellectual property law is someone who sings, plays or in some other way executes a literary or artistic work or variety, circus or puppetry act. According to the participants, the Court of Appeal had erred in saying that this definition required a performer to play a role. They argued that playing oneself didn’t exclude one being an actor, and that, as previously mentioned, the participants had been directed what to do, say and wear. They had been making a TV series which was a work of fiction, so should be considered actors with performance rights. Finally, they argued that there was no reason to deny that guided improvisation following a predetermined narrative could be considered acting.

However, the Cour de Cassation again upheld the Court of Appeal’s decision. It held that the participants had not been playing a role or following a script, and were only asked to be themselves.

References

fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%8Ele_de_la_tentation

www.courdecassation.fr/jurisprudence_2/premiere_chambre_civile_568/399_24_26123.html

www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-otherprotect/c-moralrights.htm

www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-otherprotect/c-performer.htm

www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCode.do;jsessionid=BFA9707C8E815600F10DA409D2EFC863.tpdjo06v_1?idSectionTA=LEGISCTA000006161643&cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006069414&dateTexte=20130906

www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCode.do;jsessionid=BFA9707C8E815600F10DA409D2EFC863.tpdjo06v_1?idSectionTA=LEGISCTA000006161636&cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006069414&dateTexte=20130906

Bad Language

Photo of the Assembly of French Polynesia, by "greg.road.trip", subject to Creative Commons Licence - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/deed.en_GB
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/psykedelic61/7910126162/) 

This is a little off topic again, but it was too intriguing not to write about. Today’s case was heard in the Conseil d’État, France’s highest court for administrative cases. It concerns a law passed by the Assembly of French Polynesia, reforming benefit payments for the elderly there. The Assembly had and has the authority to legislate for French Polynesia under the powers conferred by a law of 2004. This used a similar reserved powers model as the Scotland Act of 1998, where powers are deemed to be devolved if they are not explicitly reserved, with a similar set of reserved powers, though with the addition in the case of Polynesia of crime, justice and local government. This law was challenged on various grounds by people who stood to lose from the reforms. They pursued this challenge through the administrative tribunal system, which in France is a parallel system of courts for administrative law, culminating in a highest court separate from the rest of the justice system, the Conseil d'État. The challenge was on various grounds, including that the law exceeded the powers devolved to the Assembly, or that it violated private property rights protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. However, all these arguments were rejected by the Conseil d'État. One argument was accepted though, and was sufficient to strike down the law.

During the passage of the law through the Assembly, some of the legislators had spoken in Tahitian. This is the indigenous language of the island of Tahiti, where most of the population of French Polynesia live. According to the 2007 census, about 70% of French Polynesians speak French at home, while about 30% speak indigenous languages, though in fact the Polynesian languages are more spoken in the remoter islands, with French even more dominant on Tahiti itself. The 2004 autonomy statute recognised the Tahitian language, saying that “La langue tahitienne est un élément fondamental de l’identité culturelle : ciment de cohésion sociale, moyen de communication quotidien, elle est reconnue et doit être préservée.” “The Tahitian language is a fundamental element of cultural identity, cement of social cohesion, means of daily communication, it is recognised and must be preserved.” However, it also said “Le français est la langue officielle de la Polynésie française. Son usage s’impose aux personnes morales de droit public et aux personnes de droit privé dans l’exercice d’une mission de service public ainsi qu’aux usagers dans leurs relations avec les administrations et services publics”, “French is the official language of French Polynesia. Its usage is essential for public bodies and for private bodies excercising a public function as well as for members of the public in their relations with public bodies”. In this case, the Conseil d'État said that since French was the official language, the fact that some of the debate on this law had taken place in another language, even Tahitian, meant that some members of the public and members of the Assembly were denied the possibility of having understood what was decided and why. The passage of the law was “tainted with irregularity”, and the law was therefore void.

A similar decision was reached by the Conseil d'État in 2006, also in the context of French Polynesia. A 2005 law allowed, among other things, members of the Assembly to speak in Tahitian or other Polynesian languages. This was challenged by the High Commissioner of the Republic in French Polynesia, and the Conseil d'État ruled that this provision violated the provision of the autonomy statute making French the official language, so was void.

References
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Polynesia
textes.assemblee.pf/textes/documentbox.aspx?id=55426&page=1
textes.assemblee.pf/textes/documentbox.aspx?id=37192&page=1
www.conseil-etat.fr/fr/selection-de-decisions-du-conseil-d-etat/mme-c-et-autres.html
www.conseil-etat.fr/node.php?articleid=2983
www.environnement.pf/IMG/pdf/loi_organique_2004-192_1_.pdf
www.haut-commissariat-polynesie-francaise.pf/Les-missions-de-l-Etat-en-PF
www.insee.fr/fr/themes/document.asp?ref_id=ip1230
www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichJuriAdmin.do?idTexte=CETATEXT000008262074&dateTexte=
www.polynesie-francaise.pref.gouv.fr/Repartition-des-competences

The ABC of international private law

This case concerned a dispute between a cameraman and the American company ABC News, involving both employment law and intellectual property. I’m just going to look at the intellectual property aspect. The cameraman, after being laid off, claimed that ABC were infringing his intellectual property rights, including moral rights, as the author of various reports and documentaries. The case was decided by the Paris court of appeal in December 2010, and was appealed to the Cour de Cassation, who made their decision in April 2013.

The cameraman relied on Article 5(2) of the Berne Convention, which said that “the extent of protection, as well as the means of redress afforded to the author to protect his rights, shall be governed exclusively by the laws of the country where protection is claimed.”. Therefore French copyright law applied, therefore as the cameraman he was the owner of the works in question, since there was no express term in the contract of employment assigning the copyright to the employer. In US copyright law (as in the UK), this term would be implied. ABC argued, however, that Article 5(2) concerned the protection of rights and the means of redress, not their initial attribution. Therefore, the French conflict of law rules should apply, and these would apply the copyright law of the country of origin of the work. Since this was the United States, US law would apply and the copyright in the reports filmed by the cameraman would have been passed to ABC by an implied term of his contract of employment. This argument was accepted by the Paris court of appeal.

The cameraman argued in response that not only had the court of appeal misinterpreted Article 5(2), but that in any case, even if the Berne Convention didn’t apply, the relevant law would be the country of first broadcast, not the country where the work was created, and that since the reports were broadcast simultaneously across the world, France was as much the country of first broadcast as the US was.

The Cour de Cassation accepted the argument that Article 5(2) did apply to the initial attribution of copyright, so French law applied, and the cameraman did own the rights.

References

www.courdecassation.fr/jurisprudence_2/premiere_chambre_civile_568/347_10_25996.html

www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCode.do;jsessionid=473AF0D97B0FDA9B58431550D073139D.tpdjo12v_1?idSectionTA=LEGISCTA000006161633&cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006069414&dateTexte=20130531

www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichJuriJudi.do?oldAction=rechJuriJudi&idTexte=JURITEXT000027304670&fastReqId=1156585002&fastPos=3

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/11

www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P109_16834

Boisson Gazeuse

Before reading this case from the Cour de Cassation, I hadn’t come across Coca-Cola Light Sango, which is apparently a blood orange flavoured cola drink available in France and Belgium. After it was released, a Mr Abdel Sango, a cinema scriptwriter, took Coca-Cola to court. The case reached the court of appeal in Versailles. Mr Sango argued that the use of this name for an orange drink infringed his moral rights as an author in his name, since it was not merely his personal name but also his professional name as an author. He also argued that it was passing off to use his name, under which he had established a reputation as a scriptwriter, to market a product. The court of appeal rejected these arguments. Mr Sango appealed to the Cour de Cassation, which heard the appeal in April 2013, and which reiterated the arguments made by the court of appeal. It held that Mr Sango had no moral right in his own name, which was not itself a work protected under the laws concerning intellectual property. In any case, in my view, it wasn’t a pseudonym so surely it wasn’t his work. On the question of passing off, the Cour de Cassation agreed with the court of appeal that Mr Sango hadn’t demonstrated a sufficient level of recognition with consumers and professionals of the cinema, and that there was therefore no risk of confusion between him and the Coca-Cola drink.

References

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_Light_Sango

www.avocat-baranes.fr/lettre/Juillet_2010.pdf

www.courdecassation.fr/jurisprudence_2/premiere_chambre_civile_568/377_10_26024.html

www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006069414&idArticle=LEGIARTI000006278891

Moral Foundations

To what extent do intellectual property rights apply to architectural designs in the context of finished buildings? The case which I'm writing about today ultimately went to the Cour de Cassation and involved the construction of a commercial building in Quimper. The architect, Mr X, designed the building, which was to be built in two stages. The first stage was built in 1995, but the project stopped there for financial reasons and the second phase wasn’t built, except for foundations.

Then in 2005, another company, SCI Mafi, bought the site and hired a new architect, Mr Y, to design a new office building to be built on the foundations that were to have been for phase two of Mr X’s building. Mr X sought an interdict against this new project and took the case to the Tribunal de Grande Instance at Quimper in October 2007. He argued that his moral rights as an architect in his work had been infringed by the new construction. The Tribunal refused to order the demolition of the new building, but did order SCI Mafi to pay damages. At this stage Mr Y was not involved in the litigation.

Mr X then appealed to the Cour d’Appel, in Rennes, which heard the case in January 2011. Mr Y joined in in opposing his appeal. The court affirmed that an architect has copyright and moral rights in their work. This is independent of the ownership of the physical property in which the work is manifested. Both these rights, both these owners, have to be balanced, neither is absolute. The builder can therefore make modifications, but only if necessary. Mr X had argued that building a new building onto his infringed his copyright. However, the court held that in accepting to take on this two stage project, with the possibility that only one phase might be completed, Mr X had given up on the completion of the project and thus lost his right as author over the original project. The fault was with the original builder, SCI le Colisée, for not building the second phase and for only applying for conditional planning permission for the second part. This required accepting the possibility of ending the project there. Mafi bought the adjacent plot to Mr X’s finished building. Mr Y designed the new building, but didn’t alter the existing work. The new building was in a variety of styles, but the area was one of variety in building styles. Furthermore, Mr Y’s changes were in part derived from the need to conserve energy. The Cour d’Appel therefore found against Mr X.

Mr X appealed further to the Cour de Cassation, in October 2012. Mr X argued that he had a moral right, that it wasn’t explicitly renounced and was therefore still valid, and that the owner must respect that right unless constrained to by reasons beyond their control. However, the Cour de Cassation said that the moral right wasn’t renounced, merely had to be balanced against the physical owner’s right, which it had been, and that the new building did not infringe. The court therefore rejected the appeal.

References

legimobile.fr/fr/jp/j/ca/35238/2011/3/8/09_01222/

www.courdecassation.fr/jurisprudence_2/premiere_chambre_civile_568/1157_17_24373.html

Bible Stories

I came across something online recently in passing where people were asking if Bibles were copyright, & were being told that of course they weren’t, since that only persists for 70 years after the authors’ death. The thing is, I don’t think many people are reading the original Greek text these days. Not outside Greece anyway. In which case, what matters is not when Matthew, Mark, Luke & John died (leaving aside fascinating questions of biblical scholarship as to who exactly they were & whether they wrote what was attributed to them, & how authorship was defined in their world), but who the author of the relevant English translation was.

The 2 modern translations I own copies of are the Good News Bible, a translation published first in 1976, & the New Revised Standard Version, a translation published in 1989. They certainly assert copyright. Interestingly, the Copyright Designs & Patents Act 1988 explicitly provides that making a translation without the copyright holder’s permission is an infringement. It doesn’t however explicitly make it clear that the translation gives rise to a new copyright, held by the translator. One might leap to the conclusion that all the translator has done is convert a public domain work into a different form, but that it remains the same work, so remains in the public domain. Clearly this is not how it is treated, but I was curious to see where it was actually written that this should be so. Eventually I discovered that there is an explicit rule on translations, to be found in the Berne Convention, Article 2 of which expressly provides that translations are original works.

I also wanted to talk about the other interesting aspect of bible copyright, that of the King James Bible, otherwise known as the King James Version, or the Authorised Version. This was originally produced at the instigation of King James the First of England & Sixth of Scotland, though the current edition largely dates from revisions & corrections made by Benjamin Blayney in 1769. The British Government claims a perpetual copyright under the Royal Prerogative over this work. Ordinarily of course, copyright would not persist for such a long period after the work was created. Under the current law, the 1988 Act, Crown Copyright, for works created in the service of the Crown, lasts for 50 years from the creation of the work. Under the Royal Prerogative, Letters Patent were issued authorising printers to print copies of the Authorised Version, though Oxford & Cambridge Universities were additionally given the same right. Today in England, the office of Queens Printer has ended up through mergers & acquisitions in the hands of Cambridge University Press, making them & Oxford University Press the only bodies in England authorised to print the King James Version. Here in Scotland, the Letters Patent expired in 1839, & the Government decided instead, following the recommendation of a Parliamentary Select Committee, to create a Bible Board, consisting of the Lord Advocate, the Solicitor General, 2 ministers of the Church of Scotland & 2 lay members of the Church. A publisher wanting to publish the Authorised Version could pay a deposit of £500 as security for the accuracy of the edition. An official of the board would check the accuracy. In the discussions in Parliament where the Government announced these proposals, the Government stated that it was satisfied that it had the power at common law to regulate supply of the bible. This would enable the board to use “injunction”, by which presumably they meant interdict, the relevant scottish term, to prevent “pirating” of earlier editions, an interesting early appearance of this meaning of the word. The precedent referred to was Manners v Blaire (1828) 3 Bli NS 391. In the case the Court of Session held that “The duty imposed upon the chief executive officer of the government, to superintend the publication of the Acts of the Legislature, and Acts of State of that description, and also of those works upon which the established doctrines of our religion are founded,- that it is a duty imposed upon the first executive magistrate, carrying with it a corresponding prerogative.” The Government also proposed, also following the Select Committee, that there would be no restriction on the free trade into Scotland of Bibles printed in England by the authorised printers there, provided such imports were certified by the Board as accurate. When established, the ex-officio members included, in addition to the Lord Advocate & Solicitor General, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, & the members were collectively designated as HM Sole & Master Printers.

There were debates later in the 19th Century as to whether the change had led to cheaper & more accurate Bibles being available, both in Scotland & England, with the facts disputed between the two sides in Parliament. It was pointed out however, that there was not a monopoly in England, but there was in fact intense competition amongst the Universities & the Queen’s Printer. Another point made in that debate was that in fact the Queen’s Printer – now Cambridge University Press – can prevent by injunction publication in England of Authorised Version Bibles printed other than themselves & the 2 University presses but has chosen so far not to do so. In 1920 an attempt by Oxford & Cambridge to claim the right to publish other versions of the Bible, in defiance of the owners of the copyright in them, was rejected by the courts.

Today the Board still excercises its function. Although they have no web presence & don’t seem to exist in the open, the National Library of Scotland has records of their proceedings up to the 80s, & Advocates certainly claim to be counsel to the Board, though presumably this is an honorary role. The authorised printers are, as far as I can determine, Collins, the Scottish Bible Society & RL Allan.

I notice that in my KJV, bought in the late 70s, and published by Collins, the notice inside, where some books would have a copyright notice, is titled “licence” and says that it was authorised subject to the Letters Patent issued by Queen Victoria and authorised by the Lord Advocate in 1958. A glance at a new copy in the shop shows a very similar notice, but with a more recent date for authorisation.

References
books.google.co.uk/books?id=6L5ReJCqGsMC&lpg=PA145&ots=QUvzD-OzEd&dq=%22Lord%20Lyndhurst%22%20bible%20royal%20copyright&pg=PA145#v=onepage&q=%22Lord%20Lyndhurst%22%20bible%20royal%20copyright&f=false
copy.law.cam.ac.uk/cam/commentary/uk_1775/uk_1775_com_1072007111611.html#_ednref82
hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1839/jul/08/printing-the-blble-scotland
hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1839/jun/11/printing-the-bible-scotland
hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1839/may/30/scotland-printing-the-bible
hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1851/jun/17/bible-printing-monopoly
hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1859/jul/19/committee-moved-for
hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1860/jul/20/question-4
hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1908/mar/19/bible-boards-clerk
hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1839/jul/04/bible-in-scotland
hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1839/jun/14/printing-the-bible-scotland
www.biblegateway.com/versions/Good-News-Translation-GNT-Bible/
www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-Revised-Standard-Version-NRSV-Bible/
www.cambridge.org/home/page/item6459996/?site_locale=en_GB
www.crownoffice.gov.uk/About/Departmental-Overview/RoleLdAdvocate
www.gla.ac.uk/services/specialcollections/virtualexhibitions/divinewritethekingjamesbibleandscotland/thekingjamesbibleinscotland/
www.gla.ac.uk/services/specialcollections/virtualexhibitions/divinewritethekingjamesbibleandscotland/thebibleinvictorianglasgow/
www.gla.ac.uk/services/specialcollections/virtualexhibitions/divinewritethekingjamesbibleandscotland/thebibleinvictorianglasgow/
www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/2.html
www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/21
www.nls.uk/catalogues/online/cnmi/inventories/acc11182.pdf