Supreme Court of the United States

“ Many volumes of Wheaton's Reports were on hand, unsold, at the time of the publication of the third volume of Condensed Reports.
The intention of the defendant was not to make an abridgement, but to make a substitute for the whole of the appellant's work. The reports of the appellant were the result of the joint action of congress and the reporter; they set the price. If congress had thought that the people should have them cheaper, they would have lowered the price. The defendant should not have run a risk in accommodating the public; they could judge for themselves. ”

“ It is the ordinary course of trade to deliver them. Is it an unfair construction to suppose that the one copy required by the laws to be delivered, is included in the eighty copies delivered as reporter? Is there not a special provision in the case of the reporter, that he shall deliver eighty copies, while others deliver one copy. ”

“ The Condensed Reports have none of the features of an abridgement, and the work is made up of the same cases, and no more than is contained in Wheaton's Reports.
The attention of the court is called to certain facts. The laws of congress relating to the reporter's office do not bear on the question of copyright. There is no intimation in the statute of such an interference, or that the sum allowed the reporter is in lieu of copyright. The right in the reporter to fix the price of the volumes, recognizes a right to exclude others from publishing. ”