I am not happy with it The Acts of Parliament Commencement Act   Geo  c  provided that Acts of Parliament would come into force on the date on which they received royal assent unless they specified some other date instead of the first day of the session in which they were passed Previously Acts of Parliament came into force on the first day of the session in which they were passed because of the legal fiction that a session lasted one day From our modern point of view the first reading of the bill took place on  March  and the Engravers Copyright Act was passed on  June  Most sources agree with this date