Supreme Court of the United States, Ferris v. Frohman
“ The public representation of a dramatic composition, not printed and published, does not deprive the owner of his common-law right, save by operation of statute. At common law, the public performance of the play is not an abandonment of it to the public use. ”
Supreme Court of the United States, Ferris v. Frohman
“ They disclose no intention to destroy rights for which they provided no substitute. There is no indication of a purpose to incapacitate British citizens from holding their intellectual productions secure from interference in other [p434] jurisdictions according to the principles of the common law. Their right was not gone simpliciter, but only in a qualified sense for the purposes of the statutes, and there was no convention under which the authors' work became public property in the United States. ”
Supreme Court of the United States, Ferris v. Frohman
“ The fact that the court reached its conclusion in favor of the complainants by a consideration, on common-law principles, of their property in the original play, does not alter the effect of the decision. By the decree Ferris was permanently enjoined "from in any manner using, ... selling, producing, or performing ... the said defendant's copyrighted play hereinbefore referred to for any purpose." The decision thus denied to him a Federal right specially set up and claimed, within the meaning of 709 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (U.S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 575) . ”
