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Several people have written to me, both on- and off-list, to point this out, and I stand corrected! (Must brush up on my copyright law.) I would still argue in line with what I said about Reid, though, that it would be artificial to regard the Crown as having lost the opportunity to sell the information in the Shayler case when it would never have willingly taken this opportunity, given the nature of the information. And on this point a further analogy also suggests itself to me, viz the unreality of the 'lost opportunity to bargain' analysis of Wrotham Park Estates, given that Brightman J accepted in the case that the plaintiff would never willingly have released the covenant.

At 12:59 28/02/00 -0000, you wrote:

Just a footnote to this: surely one of the points of copyright is that generally, and the ECJ case of Magill (1995) always excepted, you don't have to sell; you can normally keep your exclusivity if you wish, and this is one of the reasons why copyright systems generally make the infringer liable to disgorge her profits.

Hector MacQueen