A "POWER CD" - a compact disc containing sound recordings, text, graphics and visual images - is a record within the meaning of the 1963 Copyright Act, the High Court found yesterday.
Mr Justice Barr found in favour of Mandarim Records Ltd, which manufactures power CDs for the Spanish market, in proceedings taken by the company against the Mechanical Copyright Production Society (Ireland) Ltd, a copyright collection society acting for music publishers.
In the case heard by the judge last June, Mandarim, with registered offices at Wilton Place, Dublin, had asked the court to declare that power CDs were records. The court heard that the company had manufactured some four million such CDs at pressing plants in Ireland since 1996.
The court was told that a normal CD had sound tracks only, while a power CD had additional information stored in the form of text, photographs and certain electronic videos.
MCPS claimed that, because the power CD contained other information besides sound recordings, it should not be described as a "record" within the meaning of the 1963 Act.
In his reserved judgment yesterday, Mr Justice Barr noted that the resolution of the issue raised in the case was also important in the context of proceedings taken against Mandarim in Spain by an organisation which preformed the functions of MCPS in Ireland.
In his opinion, there was nothing in the definition of "record" in Section 2 or elsewhere in the Copyright Act 1963 which excluded the added visual dimension which was the distinguishing feature of a power CD, the judge said.
The adoption of a broad interpretation of the word "record" in the case did not distort the statutory definition of record, and such an interpretation specifically accorded with the wording of Section 13.4 of the Copyright Act, he said.
The judge said Mandarim was entitled to a declaration that power CDs constitute records within the meaning of the Copyright Act, and in particular Section 13 of that Act.
Mr Denis McDonald, for Mandarim, sought an adjournment to consider matters with his Spanish-based client. Mr Brian O'Moore, for MCPS, said he was seeking a stay on the effect of the court's decision, and on the issue of costs, in the event of an appeal.
The judge adjourned the matter to October 20th.