Hector MacQueen

The War of the Booksellers: Natural Law, Equity, and Literary Property in Eighteenth-Century Scotland

This article analyses the case of Hinton v Donaldson (1773) in which the judges of the Scottish Court of Session refused to follow their English brethren in recognizing an authors right of property outside the Statute of Anne (1710). The decision must be understood against the background of distinct notions of common law and equity in Scots law, drawn from the Natural law tradition of the European jus commune. At the same time the decision reveals developing strands of Enlightenment thought and concepts of the judicial role in relation to legislation.

Change of circumstances: CISG, CESL and a case from Scotland

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a critical analysis of the concept of “change of circumstances” as a justification for judicial revision of contracts.Design/methodology/approach – The study analyses international legal texts on the subject in the light of a decision of the Inner House of the Court of Session in Scotland, Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland v. Lloyds Banking Group plc [2011] CSIH 87 (currently subject to appeal to the UK Supreme Court).Findings – Whatever the merits of a change of circumstances doctrine, the Lloyds case does not provide a good example for its application.Research limitations/implications – The scope of a change of circumstances doctrine should be tested by further comparative study.Originality/value – This is the first consideration of the Lloyds case in an international and comparative context.

Intellectual Property in a Peripheral Jurisdiction: A Matter of Policy?

The law [of intellectual property] ... is largely based on statutes applicable to the United Kingdom as a whole. By contrast, most of the case law has been decided in English courts. Nonetheless there are three separate jurisdictions to which litigants may on occasion resort. While the procedures and remedies available in Northern Ireland closely resemble those of England and Wales, the Scottish system is often distinct in substance or in nomenclature. The special characteristics of Scottish litigation, however, are not pursued here.

Performance Rights in Music: Some Perspectives from Economics, Law and History

This chapter discusses the liberal economic approach to problems of copyright law espoused by Alan Peacock, in particular in relation to performing rights in music. His contribution showed a man of independent mind, not at all afraid to disagree with the established wisdom or to draw conclusions that surprised those for and with whom he worked. In the spirit of an argument amongst friends, the chapter analyses the extent to which Peacock’s view of the economics of copyright resembled or differed from those who had gone before, including David Hume and Arnold Plant. It is suggested that the approach was another example of Peacock’s rejection of William Baumol’s analysis of the economics of the performing arts as always bound to require public subsidy. Peacock showed that composers and their publishers adjusted their positions to the demands of the market and also generated significant revenue for themselves in meeting consumer demand, in particular through collective action by way of membership organisations such as the Performing Right Society. In the 1970s he also advocated the imposition of a levy on blank media enabling private copying of content, an issue which has recently returned to the fore in debates about further copyright reform to meet the digital challenge. The chapter concludes with some comments on Peacock’s reluctance to extend his economic analysis to more general questions about copyright law and policy.

Essays in Conveyancing and Property Law in Honour of Professor Robert Rennie

Professor Robert Rennie has been one of the most influential voices in Scots private law over the past thirty years. Highly respected as both an academic and a practitioner, his contribution to the development of property law and practice has been substantial and unique. This volume celebrates his retirement from the Chair of Conveyancing at the University of Glasgow in 2014 with a selection of essays written by his peers and colleagues from the judiciary, academia and legal practice.

4. “It’s in the Post”: Distance Contracting in Scotland 1681-1855

Professor Robert Rennie has been one of the most influential voices in Scots private law over the past thirty years. Highly respected as both an academic and a practitioner, his contribution to the development of property law and practice has been substantial and unique. This volume celebrates his retirement from the Chair of Conveyancing at the University of Glasgow in 2014 with a selection of essays written by his peers and colleagues from the judiciary, academia and legal practice.

David Daube and T B Smith

The author narrates the chance discovery of a cache of offprints from Daube amongst Smiths private papers, along with a few letters throwing light on the early development of their relationship when Daube moved to Aberdeen to take up the Chair of Jurisprudence when Smith was Dean of Law.

Ae fond kiss: A private matter?

The Ben Beinart Memorial Lecture given at the University of Cape Town on 16 April 2013. The paper discusses the 1804 case of Cadell & Davies v Stewart, in which the existence of rights to publish or to prevent publication of private letters between the poet Robert Burns and his close friend Agnes McLehose was ventilated at length by the advocates and judges appearing in the court. The paper assesses the evidence for what really happened between Burns and Agnes, and discusses the contemporary significance of the courts decision to prevent publication.

Third Party Rights in Contract

This chapter provides a comparative and historical study, ranging across civil law and common law systems, of the problems and pitfalls of codification with special reference to China and Scotland and the law of third party rights in contract. It provides arguments for the inclusion of a provision on this subject in the Chinese Contract Law and for a statutory modernization to rescue Scots law from the position of being, as one critic has put it, stuck in the seventeenth century. The chapter discusses the codification of third party rights in Scotland, Hong Kong and China. In third party rights codification, risk is inherent, not just in codifying, but in legislating generally. An aspect of the risk of fixation is the ‘disconnect’ which can open up between the text and what happens in court and in practice. The other possible hazard is incompleteness. Keywords:China; civil law; codifications; contract law; Hong Kong; Scotland; third party rights

Third Party Rights in Contract: A Case Study in Codifying and Not Codifying

A comparative and historical study of the problems and pitfalls of codification with special reference to China and Scotland and the law of third party rights in contract. The paper argues for the inclusion of a provision on this subject in the Chinese Contract Law and for a statutory modernisation to rescue Scots law from the position of being, as one critic has put it, stuck in the seventeenth century.