Francis, Day & Hunter Ltd. v. Twentieth Century Fox Corp.

"Francis, Day & Hunter Ltd. v. Twentieth Century Fox Corp." [1939] 4 D.L.R. 353 is a leading Judicial Committee of the Privy Council opinion on copyright law. The Council held that copyright cannot subsist in non-original work or in the title of a work alone unless it is original and distinctive.

Francis, Day and Hunter had released a song titled "The man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo". Years later, 20th Century Fox put out a movie by the same title, but had no other connections to the song. Francis sued for copyright infringement.

Lord Wright held that a name alone cannot possess copyright unless it is sufficiently original and distinctive. "To break the bank" is a hackneyed expression, and Monte Carlo is or was the most obvious place at which that achievement or accident might take place."

ee also

*John Brodel v Telstra Corporation - similar Australian case
*Dick v. Yates (1881) 18 Ch D 76