How nice to see this ruling surface again, even if it has a desperate
air about it in the particular case.  The original was between Boosey,
music publishers, and George Whight, Aeolian's UK dealer in 1899 (and
very soon to be bought out to form the UK branch of the Aeolian
Company).  It's pretty well the same grounds and ruling as Melville
Clark achieved in the USA.

I knew that, in UK law, old player piano rulings are still accepted as
precedent in computing law -- they did, after all, settle much of the
legal view regarding the status of programmable machine control.  It's
nice to see that these precedents actually surface from time to time.

The particular fun thing here is that the ruling is being cited against
"Universal Music Australia", and Aeolian's roll-perforating division
traded as the "Universal Music Company".  It would be too much to hope
that the Australian company is anything more than a similar-sounding
name, but still I love the way that history has this tendency of
looping back on itself!

Julian Dyer