Copyright: Its History and Its LawBowker, R. R. (Richard Rogers)
History
Copyright: Its History and Its Law
Bowker, R. R. (Richard Rogers)
Copyright -- History; Copyright -- United States -- History
Whether simple quotation constitutes an infringement or is "fair use,"
depends upon extent and in some respects upon purpose. In 1892 Justice
North, in the English Court of Chancery, in Walter _v._ Steinkopff, held
that the use by the _St. James Gazette_ of two fifths of an article by
Kipling, copyrighted by the _Times_, was beyond "fair use" of
quotations, notwithstanding the newspaper custom of copying from one
another. On the other hand, quotations in a review of a book made to
reasonable extent for the purposes of criticism, have usually been
considered "fair use," provided they do not go to the extent of a
description or abridgment which would be measurably a substitute for the
book.
{Sidenote: Private use}
The multiplication of copies by handwriting or other process for private
use, as among the members of an orchestra or in a business office, has
been held an infringement in English decisions, though prohibition of
the making of a single copy for personal use would be an extreme
application of this doctrine, and such use is specifically permitted in
the new English code.
{Sidenote: The doctrine of "unfair competition"}
Beyond the purview of copyright law, there is a means of legal remedy
for the copyright proprietor which can be enforced by state as well as
by federal courts, resting either upon statutes outside the copyright
law, or on the general principles of equity. This is the application of
the doctrine of "unfair competition" especially in cases involving
"fraud" or fraudulent representation, direct or implied, leading the
purchaser to buy something other than what he supposes he is buying.
Thus if a publisher prints and binds a book with a title and in a style
that leads a purchaser to suppose that it is another book which he is
buying, the publisher of the other book has the right to obtain
equitable relief by an injunction from the transgressor on the ground of
unfair competition without any reference to copyright law, although this
doctrine is more applied in the case of patents, trade-marks and
copyrights than perhaps any other field.
{Sidenote: The doctrine of deceptive intent}
There is also evident a growing tendency on the part of the courts to
protect the public from possible deception especially if done with
fraudulent intent, where some distinctive name or symbol or form
associated with some line of product is used for another line of product
of different origin and character, though there may be here no direct
competition; but this comparatively new doctrine is more likely to be
used in regard to trade-mark articles than in respect to literary and
like property. It might, however, apply in a case where a well-known
publishing house had published, for instance, a popular series of school
books as Smith's Arithmetical Readers and another firm containing the
same name had started to publish a Smith's Algebraic Readers--but the
application would be extremely doubtful.
{Sidenote: The "Chatterbox" cases}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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