This assignment will provide advice to Pop and Soul and Caesar regarding their respective legal positions following the filming of the Tyla Quick concert. The advice will consider whether Pop and Soul can prevent the distribution of a documentary made from the footage, and whether Caesar can sue for the tort of conversion. This analysis is based on the law of New Zealand.
a) Pop and Soul’s Claim
Pop and Soul’s legal position involves two key questions: whether they own the spectacle of the concert and whether they can obtain an injunction against Slim Shady’s documentary.
The idea of “owning” a spectacle is not a recognised concept in law. The foundational Commonwealth authority on this point is the Australian case of *Victoria Park Racing and Recreation Grounds Co Ltd v Taylor* (1937) 58 CLR 479, which has been influential in New Zealand. This case established that a person cannot have property rights in a spectacle. An owner of a venue can take physical steps, such as building higher fences, to prevent outsiders from viewing an event, but they cannot sue a person who views or describes the event from an adjacent property. Applying this principle, Pop and Soul do not own the “Tyla Quick Hype 2026 concert experience” in a way that prevents Caesar and his friends from viewing it from his private property.
However, Pop and Soul may have a much stronger claim to prevent the distribution of the documentary based on copyright law. The New Zealand Copyright Act 1994 protects performances. Under section 171 of the Act, a performer (Tyla Quick) has the right to consent to the recording or communication to the public of her performance. A recording made without that consent is an infringing copy.
While the primary right belongs to the performer, section 199 of the Act gives rights to persons with exclusive recording contracts. As the promoter of a major world tour, it is highly probable that Pop and Soul have an exclusive contract with Tyla Quick that gives them the sole right to record and distribute the concert. Assuming such a contract exists, Pop and Soul would have standing to sue for infringement. Slim Shady’s documentary, created from Caesar’s unauthorised recording, would be an infringement of Pop and Soul’s exclusive recording rights.
Given a likely successful claim for copyright infringement, Pop and Soul could seek an injunction under section 121 of the Copyright Act 1994 to prevent any further distribution or broadcast of the documentary. Courts will grant an injunction to protect commercial interests from clear copyright infringement. Therefore, Pop and Soul are likely to be successful in obtaining an injunction.
b) Caesar’s Claim against Slim Shady for Conversion
Caesar may wish to sue Slim Shady for taking his video files. The question specifically asks whether a claim in the tort of conversion would be successful. Conversion is an intentional act of dealing with a chattel in a manner that is inconsistent with the rights of the person entitled to possession.
For a claim to succeed, the object in question must be a “chattel” or tangible personal property. The central difficulty for Caesar is that the raw video files are digital data, which is intangible. The traditional position at common law is that conversion does not apply to intangible property. This was confirmed in the influential UK House of Lords decision in *OBG Ltd v Allan* [2007] UKHL 21, where it was held that conversion is limited to chattels and does not protect intangible things like contractual rights or information.
New Zealand courts have generally followed this approach. While Slim Shady’s act of copying the files was unauthorised and dishonest, he did not take a physical object belonging to Caesar. He copied information from Caesar’s laptop onto his own USB stick, leaving the original files on the laptop intact. Caesar was not deprived of his property, only of the exclusive control over the information contained within it. As the files are intangible information, they cannot be the subject of a claim for conversion.
Furthermore, the act of copying itself is not typically seen as a conversion. Conversion requires a dealing that is a denial of the owner’s right of possession or title. Simply making a copy does not deprive the owner of the original item. Therefore, Caesar’s claim against Slim Shady for the tort of conversion is very unlikely to succeed. Caesar may have a stronger claim against Slim Shady for breach of his own copyright in the film he created, but a claim in conversion will fail.
References
- Copyright Act 1994 (NZ)
- OBG Ltd v Allan [2007] UKHL 21
- Victoria Park Racing and Recreation Grounds Co Ltd v Taylor (1937) 58 CLR 479
