The Confusion, Uncertainty, and Dissatisfaction with the Legal Protection of Newspaper and Periodical Titles in Nineteenth-Century England

Abstract

As Victorian newspapers and periodicals proliferated and competition became more fierce, their proprietors recognised the importance and value of titles. This paper explores the legal protection available in respect of such titles. It charts a shift from a period of uncertainty as to whether protection was best characterised as part of copyright law, or better understood as falling within the fast-evolving rules relating to the protection of signs used by traders on their goods or services. As legal clarity emerged to the effect that titles were to be protected by rules “analogous to trade marks,” proprietor of periodicals were faces with unpredictability as to precisely how those rules would be applied in the context of newspapers and periodicals. Reforms were suggested, but calls for a system of registration of titles were unsuccessful.