Name: Holmes v. Hurst — Opinion of the Court
Author: Henry Billings Brown

Quotes from Holmes v. Hurst — Opinion of the Court (Henry Billings Brown)

Henry Billings Brown, Holmes v. Hurst — Opinion of the Court

“ If an author permit his intellectual production to be published either serially or collectively, his right to a copyright is lost as effectually as the right of an inventor to a patent upon an invention which he deliberately abandons to the public, and this, too, irrespective of his actual intention not to make such abandonment. It is the intellectual production of the author which the copyright protects, and not the particular form which such production ultimately takes ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Holmes v. Hurst — Opinion of the Court

“ The right of an author, irrespective of statute, to his own productions and to a control of their publication, seems to have been recognized by the common law, but to have been so ill defined that from an early period legislation was adopted to regulate and limit such right. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Holmes v. Hurst — Opinion of the Court

“ The right thus secured by the copyright act is not a right to the use of certain words, because they are the common property of the human race, and are as little susceptible of private appropriation as air or sunlight; nor is it the right to ideas alone, since in the absence of means of communicating them they are of value to no one but the author. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Holmes v. Hurst — Opinion of the Court

“ If, as contended by the plaintiff, the publication of a book be a wholly different affair from the publication of the several chapters serially, then such publication of the parts might be permitted to go on indefinitely before a copyright for the book is applied for, and such copyright used to enjoin a sale of books which was perfectly lawful when the books were published. There is no fixed time within which an author must apply for a copyright, so that it be 'before publication' ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Holmes v. Hurst — Opinion of the Court

“ While the propriety of these decisions has been the subject of a good deal of controversy among legal writers, it seems now to be considered the settled law of this country and England that the right of an author to a monopoly of his publications is measured and determined by the copyright act, in other words, that, while a right did exist by common law, it has been superseded by statute. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Holmes v. Hurst — Opinion of the Court

“ If the patent law furnishes any analogy in this particular, and we see no reason why it may not,-then there is nothing better settled than that a mere aggregation of familar elements, producing no new result, is not a patentable combination. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Holmes v. Hurst — Opinion of the Court

“ We find it unnecessary to determine whether the requirement of section 4 could have been met by a deposit of the book, 'The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,' prior to the publication of the first part in the Atlantic Monthly, or whether, for the complete protection of the author, it would be necessary that each part should be separately copyrighted. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Holmes v. Hurst — Opinion of the Court

“ We have not overlooked the inconvenience which our conclusions will cause, if, in order to protect their articles from piracy, authors are compelled to copyright each chapter or installment as it may appear in a periodical ”

Henry Billings Brown

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Quotes from Holmes v. Hurst — Opinion of the Court (Henry Billings Brown)

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Henry Billings Brown

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Quotes from Holmes v. Hurst — Opinion of the Court (Henry Billings Brown)

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Get perspective with Kwize: daily news enlightened by great literature