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 the Scribner case the decision delivered on the same day by the same
justice, upheld the lower courts in their view, "that there was nothing
in any of the notices of a claim of right or reservation under the
copyright law," and "that independent of statutory law" the question of
relief in equity was not open to the federal courts because there was no
diversity of citizenship nor claim above $2000 "requisite to confer
jurisdiction of questions of rights independent of the copyright
statutes." On the allegations of the bill as to alleged contributory
infringement by inducing dealers to sell in violation of agreement, on
which the lower courts held that complainants had not proved an
agreement based upon their printed notice, the Supreme Court declined to
review the question of fact.
{Sidenote: English underselling case}
In the English case of Larby _v._ Love, in 1910, however, Justice
Bucknill in the King's Bench held the defendant liable for damages for
the sale of certain maps to undersellers in disregard of prohibitions
specified in the bill of sale.
{Sidenote: Suits under state law}
The Macy cases included suits in the New York State courts by Straus
_v._ American Publishers' Association _et al._, claiming that the action
of the publishers in endeavoring to maintain rates constituted a
conspiracy in restraint of trade contrary to the statutes. The N. Y.
Court of Appeals held, through Chief Judge Parker, that the agreements
would have been free from legal objections if confined solely to
copyright publications, but were contrary to the statute in affecting
the right of a dealer to sell books not copyrighted at the price he
chooses. The copyright side of the question was again pressed in the
lower courts and reached the Court of Appeals a second time in 1908,
when it was passed upon by a divided court, four to three, Judge Gray
for the court declining to review its previous action. The dissenting
judges, through Judge Bartlett, held that the decision of the U. S.
Supreme Court in the Bobbs-Merrill case did apply in the current case
and that the State Court of Appeals should therefore conform its
decision to the finding of the federal Supreme Court. The question has
been brought into the federal courts in a new series of suits, and it
has yet to be finally settled by the U. S. Supreme Court, whether the
legal monopoly conferred by the copyright statute safeguards the
copyright proprietor against certain provisions of the anti-trust laws,
state or national.
{Sidenote: Translating}
{Sidenote: "Other version"}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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