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Intellectual property – Copyright – Transformation of educational games for intellectual development of young children – New edition of game books – Compilation – Whether Mr. Ghanotakis has copyright in books because he made changes to them – Whether Mr. Ghanotakis made compilation within meaning of Copyright Act.

In the early 1980s, the Lyons brothers created two educational games designed to foster the intellectual development of young children. In 1991, the Lyons assigned their publishing rights to a company called Mondia, but it had limited success.

In 1993, Mr. Ghanotakis convinced the Lyons that they could boost sales of the games by changing their format and presenting them as game books. To this end, in 1994, Mondia and L.E.I., a company of which Mr. Ghanotakis was the sole shareholder and director, signed a contract to publish and distribute the games in the new format. However, the partnership was not a success. In 1996, Mondia signed an agreement assigning its rights to L.E.I. The Lyons intervened in the agreement and retained their copyrights.

In May 2000, an order to wind up L.E.I. was made.

In April 2002, after the winding-up of L.E.I. had been confirmed, the Lyons brothers noticed that a new edition of the game books had been put into circulation although they had not authorized this and had not even been consulted.

The Lyons brothers seek a permanent injunction against Mr. Ghanotakis to have him cease marketing, distributing and selling the adapted versions of the game books. Mr. Ghanotakis claims that all copyrights in the new version belong to him and that he therefore has the right to market them.