The Bermuda Broadcasting Company has been taken to court by the Performing Rights Society for alleged breaches of copyright legislation.

And, according to a preliminary ruling, the broadcaster asked Supreme Court to find that the island’s copyright laws were invalid.

The judgment by Chief Justice Ian Kawaley, dated July 21, states that Bermuda Broadcasting had argued that the Copyright and Designs Act 2004 (CDA) was void due to conflict with UK law.

Alternatively, the company argued that the CDA was void because Bermuda’s legislature was not “constitutionally competent” to legislate foreign copyright protection.

The courts, however, ruled in favour of the PRS - a UK body that collects commissions for performances of copyright music - on both preliminary issues.

During the July 17 hearing in Supreme Court, lawyer Peter Sanderson, representing Bermuda Broadcasting, argued that the CDA was in conflict with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which was extended to Bermuda in 2008 — on the same day that the CDA came into effect.

The UK Act’s extension to Bermuda was revoked in 2009, but Mr Sanderson argued that having two competing statutory schemes created a legal inconsistency, or “repugnancy” which rendered the CDA void.

Mr Justice Kawaley said that if Mr Sanderson’s argument was correct, the result would be that Bermuda has had no statutory copyright law for nearly eight years.

And he wrote that there appeared to be no “substantive conflict” between the two schemes.

“On any view, the 2009 Bermuda Order, made on Guy Fawkes Day 2009, seems to have been more of a damp squib than a firework in Colonial Laws Validity Act repugnancy terms,” he added.

The Chief Justice ruled in favour of PRS, but said Bermuda Broadcasting could argue during the main trial that specific provisions of the CDA were void for repugnancy between February 8, 2008 and November 12, 2009, when both regimes were in place. But the judge took a stronger stance on the “ambitious” argument that the CDA was void because Bermuda legislature was unable to legislate foreign copyright protection.

“The CDA does not impose liabilities on overseas persons or entities at all,” he wrote.

“It will only be extended to such overseas parties as part of a quid pro quo for similar protection being granted to Bermudian authors and copyright owners in other jurisdiction under corresponding foreign law.

“The territorial centre of gravity of the CDA is Bermuda.”

Mr Justice Kawaley later added: “The CDA was clearly within the competence of Bermuda’s Legislature to enact and the argument that it is invalid because it has impermissible extraterritorial effect must be firmly rejected.”

The case is expected to return to the courts later this year.