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
In 1899 G. P. Putnam's Sons purchased from Kipling's authorized
publishers sheets of twelve volumes, added three volumes of
non-copyright or otherwise authorized material and published the fifteen
volumes, "Brushwood edition," of Kipling's works, with the design of an
elephant's head on the binding. Kipling sought an injunction for
infringement of copyright, use of trade-mark and unfair competition with
the "Outward bound edition" of his works, which also bore an elephant's
head. In 1903 the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals, through Judge Coxe,
affirmed a decision holding as "a well-recognized principle of law" that
"the defendants, having purchased unbound copyrighted volumes, were at
liberty, so far as the copyright statute is concerned, to bind and
resell them"; that the elephant's head, not being a registered
trade-mark, could not be protected as a trade-mark; and that there was
no similarity of editions constituting unfair competition. But in 1907,
in Dutton _v._ Cupples & Leon, the plaintiffs obtained damages for a
series of books closely imitating the get-up of their "Gem" or "Dainty"
series. Passing off, however, cannot be made ground of action when
material protectable by copyright has not been copyrighted, as was held
in 1908, in Bamforth _v._ Douglas Post Card Co., by Judge McPherson in
the U. S. Circuit Court.
{Sidenote: Burlesqued title}
The suit to enjoin the use of a reversed or burlesque title, when the
_Boston Herald_ printed, under the title of "Letters of a son to his
self-made father," a skit on Lorimer's "Letters of a self-made merchant
to his son," was denied by Judge Morton in the Massachusetts Supreme
Court in 1903 as involving no deception.
{Sidenote: The Drummond case}
In 1894 Henry Drummond, a British subject, obtained from Judge Dallas,
in the U. S. Circuit Court, an injunction restraining Henry Altemus from
publishing what purported to be exact reports of twelve lectures, of
which eight only had been imperfectly reported in the _British Weekly_,
on the ground that the author had a common law right to restrain the
publication "of any literary matter as the plaintiff's, which was not
actually his creation, and to prevent fraud."
{Sidenote: The new British code}
The new British measure comprehensively defines infringement as the
doing without consent of the owner of the copyright of "anything the
sole right to do which is by this act conferred on the owner of the
copyright," but specifically excepts (1) fair dealing for private study,
research, criticism, review or newspaper summary; (2) use by an artist
of sketches, etc., made for a work of which he has sold the copyright,
provided he does not repeat or imitate that work; (3) graphic
reproduction of objects, or photographing of paintings, etc., in a
public place; (4) limited extracts for use in school books; (5) report
of lectures unless prohibited by placard; (6) reading or recitation of
reasonable extracts.
XV
REMEDIES AND PROCEDURE
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