What is a "legal right" for a plaintiff to sue for damages arising from copyright infringement?
British Columbia, Canada
The following excerpt is from Aldrich v. One Stop Video Ltd., 1987 CanLII 2766 (BC SC):
A legal right then involves entitlement on the part of a person to call upon the law and its powers of enforcement to ensure that the expectations raised by the right’s consequent obligation on others is met or to provide some other remedy in lieu of meeting that expectation. Where there is no entitlement to enforcement or an alternate remedy, the expectation cannot be defined as a legal right. Thus, where the law refuses to enforce an expectation, there is no legal right. Such is the situation where the common law refuses claims for a non-compensable loss related to anticipated illegal gain. As stated in Lord Byron v. Dugdale, supra, equity was without independent jurisdiction in matters relating to copyright and followed the law. Therefore, where neither law nor equity would enforce the expectations of copyright, it could correctly be said that there was no copyright in the subject works.
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