Case No. IP-2020-000140

Music Publishing v Macaulay [1974] 1 WLR 1308 (HL) (“Schroeder”) also involved a music publishing contract. The composer assigned to the publisher the worldwide copyright in musical works composed over a considerable period. The House of Lords held that the publisher could simply place the compositions “in a drawer and leave them there”, saying that there were many reasons why a publisher might choose not to publish. In discussing this case Mr Richards properly pointed out that while saying that “I do not think that a publisher could reasonably be expected to enter into any positive commitment to publish future work by an unknown composer”. Lord Reid had suggested that “[p]ossibly there might be some general undertaking to use [the publisher’s] best endeavours to promote the composer’s work. But that would probably have to be in such general terms as to be of little use to the composer59.Both Nichols and Schroeder60.Mr Richards stressed that none of Domino’s legal advisers had identified any case in which a recording contract had been held to include any implied obligation to exploit. He referred me to