Fundamentally, copyright law exists to prevent others from taking unfair advantage of
a person’s creative efforts. The courts have displayed very little sympathy for plagiarists
and frequently have demonstrated that copyright law ought to be interpreted in such a
way as to protect the interests of the copyright owner. This approach is best summed
up in the words of Peterson J in University of London Press Ltd v University Tutorial Press
Ltd, where he said:
. . . there remains the rough practical test that what is worth copying is prima facie worth
protecting.1
However, this probably goes too far and, if applied literally, protection would be
afforded to works which were not the result of sufficient skill and judgment. Pumfrey J
made this point in Cantor Fitzgerald International v Tradition (UK) Ltd2 where he said
of the above maxim (at 133):