Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/210/339
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 18:31:18+00:00

Document:
BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY, Appt., v. ISIDOR STRAUS and Nathan Straus, Copartners, Doing Business under the Firm Name and Style of R. H. Macy & Company.
Argued: March 12, 13, 1908.
Messrs. W. H. H. Miller, C. C. Shirley, and Samuel D. Miller for appellant.
Messrs. John G. Carlisle and Edmond E. Wise for appellees.
The complainant in the circuit court, appellant here, the Bobbs-Merrill Company, brought suit against the respondents, appellees here, Isidor Straus and Nathan Straus, partners as R. H. Macy & Company, in the circuit court of the United States for the southern district of New York, to restrain the sale of a copyrighted novel, entitled 'The Castaway,' at retail at less than $1 for each copy. The ciruit court dismissed the bill on final hearing. 139 Fed. 155. The decree of the circuit court was affirmed on appeal by the circuit court of appeals, 77 C. C. A. 607, 147 Fed. 15.
Macy & Company, before the commencement of the action, purchased copies of the book for the purpose of selling the same at retail. Ninety per cent of such copies were purchased by them at wholesale at a price below the retail price by about 40 per cent, and 10 per cent of the books purchased by them were purchased at retail, and the full price paid therefor.
'All of the argument has been upon the assumption that the very numerous decisions of the circuit courts and circuit courts of appeals, such as the Heaton-Peninsular Button-Fastener Co. v. Eureka Specialty Co. 35 L.R.A. 728, 25 C. C. A. 267, 47 U. S. App. 146, 77 Fed. 288, the Victor Talking Mach. Co. v. The Fair, 61 C. C. A. 58, 123 Fed. 424, and others along the same line, as well as the Cotton Tie Case in this court, upholding this restriction, with reference to sales of patented articles, express the law; and we have been especially confident that such must be the case, for the reason that this court, in E. Bement & Sons v. National Harrow Co. 186 U. S. page 70, 46 L. ed. 1058, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 747, has given its sanction to the broad doctrines laid down in the Heaton-Peninsular Case, supra.
A case such as the present one, concerning inventions protected by letters patent of the United States, has not been decided in this court, so far as we are able to discover. In the so-called 'Cotton Tie Case' (American Cotton Tie Co. v. Simmons, 106 U. S. 89, 27 L. ed. 79, 1 Sup. Ct. Rep. 52), the complainant company owned patents for improvements in metallic cotton-bale ties, and these cotton-bale ties were manufactured by the patentee, and stamped in the buckles were the words: 'Licensed to use once only.' After the bands had been severed at the cotton mill, the respondent bought them and the buckles as scrap iron, rolled and straightened the pieces of the bands, and riveted their ends together. He then cut them into proper lengths and sold them, with the buckles, to be used as ties.
We cannot agree that any different view of the Cotton Tie Case was indicated in the comments of the learned justice, speaking for this court, in Morgan Envelope Co. v. Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Co. 152 U. S. 425, 433, 38 L. ed. 500, 503, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 627. What was there said in connection with the quotation from the opinion of Mr. Justice Blatchford in the Cotton Tie Case enforces the view that the case was one of infringement because of the reconstruction of the patented device.
The question was supposed to be involved in the recent case of Cortelyou v. Johnson, 207 U. S. 196, ante, 105, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 105, where a patented machine, known as the Neostyle, was sold with a license, printed on the baseboard of the machine, limiting the use thereof to certain paper, ink, and other supplies, made by the Neostyle company. While the question as to the validity of such license restriction was fully and ably argued by counsel, the case went off upon the finding that notice of the license restriction was not brought home to the defendant company.
We therefore approach the consideration of this question as a new one in this court, and one that involves the extent of the protection which is given by the copyright statutes of the United States to the owner of a copyright under the facts disclosed in this record. Recent cases in this court have affirmed the proposition that copyright property under the Federal law is wholly statutory, and depends upon the right created under the acts of Congress passed in pursuance of the authority conferred under article 1, § 8, of the Federal Constitution: 'To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.' American Tobacco Co. v. Werckmeister, 207 U. S. 284, ante, 72, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 72; White-Smith Music Pub. Co. v. Apollo Co. 209 U. S. 1, ante, 319, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 319; following the previous cases of Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Pet. 591, 8 L. ed. 1055; Banks v. Manchester, 128 U. S. 244-253, 32 L. ed. 425-429, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 36; Thompson v. Hubbard, 131 U. S. 123-151, 33 L. ed. 76-86, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 710.
At common law an author had a property in his manuscript, and might have redress against anyone who undertook to realize a profit from its publication without authority of the author. Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Pet. 591-659, 8 L. ed. 1055-1080.
This fact is emphasized when we note the title to the act of Congress, passed at its first session,'An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of Such Copies, during the Times Therein Mentioned.' 1 Stat. at L. by Peters, chap. 15, p. 124.
'Sec. 4952. Any citizen of the United States or resident therein, who shall be the author, inventor, designer, or proprietor of any book, map, chart, dramatic or musical composition, engraving, cut, print, or photograph or negative thereof, or of a painting, drawing, chromo, statute, statuary, and of models or designs intended to be perfected as works of the fine arts, and the executors, administrators, or assigns of any such person, shall, upon complying with the provisions of this chapter, have the sole liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, completing, copying, executing, finishing, and vending the same.' U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 3406.
'Sec. 4965. If any person, after the recording of the title of any map, chart, musical composition, print, cut, engraving, or photograph, or chromo, or of the description of any painting, drawing, statue, statuary, or model or design intended to be perfected and executed as a work of the fine arts, as provided by this chapter, shall, within the term limited, and without the consent of the proprietor of the copyright first obtained in writing, signed in presence of two or more witnesses, engrave, etch, work, copy, print, publish, or import, either in whole or in part, or by varying the main design with intent to evade the law, or, knowing the same to be so printed, published, or imported, shall sell or expose to sale any copy of such map or other article, as aforesaid, he shall forfeit to the proprietor all the plates on which the same shall be copied, and every sheet thereof, either copied or printed, and shall further forfeit one dollar for every sheet of the same found in his possession, either printing, printed, copied, published, imported, or exposed for sale; and in case of a painting, statute, or statuary, he shall forfeit ten dollars for every copy of the same in his possession, or by him sold or exposed for sale, one half thereof to the proprietor and the other half to the use of the United States.' U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 3414.
Section 4965 undertakes to work a forfeiture of copyrighted articles, and confers a right of action for a penalty. Relief is given in a single suit, one half of the money recovered going to the United States. Werckmeister v. American Tobacco Co. 207 U. S. 375, ante, 124, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 124.
As this is a suit in equity for relief under § 4970 of the U. S. Revised Statutes, giving to the circuit and district courts of the United States the right to grant relief by injunctions to prevent the violation of rights secured by the copyright statutes, we are not concerned with rights and remedies under § 4965.
What does the statute mean in granting 'the sole right of vending the same?' Was it intended to create a right which would permit the holder of the copyright to fasten, by notice in a book or upon one of the articles mentioned within the statute, a restriction upon the subsequent alienation of the subject-matter of copyright after the owner had parted with the title to one who had acquired full dominion over it and had given a satisfactory price for it? It is not denied that one who has sold a copyrighted article, without restriction, has parted with all right to control the sale of it. The purchaser of a book, once sold by authority of the owner of the copyright, may sell it again, although he could not publish a new edition of it.
The precise question, therefore, in this case is, Does the sole right to vend (named in § 4952) secure to the owner of the copyright the right, after a sale of the book to a purchaser, to restrict future sales of the book at retail, to the right to sell it at a certain price per copy, because of a notice in the book that a sale at a different price will be treated as an infringement, which notice has been brought home to one undertaking to sell for less than the named sum? We do not think the statute can be given such a construction, and it is to be remembered that this is purely a question of statutory construction. There is no claim in this case of contract limitation, nor license agreement controlling the subsequent sales of the book.
In our view the copyright statutes, while protecting the owner of the copyright in his right to multiply and sell his production, do not create the right to impose, by notice, such as is disclosed in this case, a limitation at which the book shall be sold at retail by future purchasers, with whom there is no privity of contract. This conclusion is reached in view of the language of the statute, read in the light of its main purpose to secure the right of multiplying copies of the work,a right which is the special creation of the statute. True, the statute also secures, to make this right of multiplication effectual, the sole right to vend copies of the book, the production of the author's thought and conception. The owner of the copyright in this case did sell copies of the book in quantities and at a price satisfactory to it. It has exercised the right to vend. What the complainant contends for embraces not only the right to sell the copies, but to qualify the title of a future purchaser by the reservation of the right to have the remedies of the statute against an infringer because of the printed notice of its purpose so to do unless the purchaser sells at a price fixed in the notice. To add to the right of exclusive sale the authority to control all future retail sales, by a notice that such sales must be made at a fixed sum, would give a right not included in the terms of the statute, and, in our view, extend its operation, by construction, beyond its meaning, when interpreted with a view to ascertaining the legislative intent in its enactment.
ASGROW SEED COMPANY, Petitioner v. Denny WINTERBOER and Becky Winterboer, dba Deebees.
QUALITY KING DISTRIBUTORS, INC., Petitioner, v. L'ANZA RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL, INC.
CHARLES SCRIBNER and Arthur H. Scribner, Trading as Charles Scribner's Sons, Appts., v. ISIDOR STRAUS and Nathan Straus, Individually and as Copartners, Trading under the Firm of R. H. Macy & Company. NO 204. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, INCORPORATED, Appt., v. ISIDOR STRAUS and Nathan Straus, Individually and as Copartners, Trading under the Name of R. H. Macy & Company. NO 205.
BOSTON STORE OF CHICAGO v. AMERICAN GRAPHOPHONE CO. et al.
BAUER & CIE. and the Bauer Chemical Company, v. JAMES O'DONNELL.
ISAAC H. CALIGA, Plff. in Err., v. INTER OCEAN NEWSPAPER COMPANY.
BUCK et al. v. JEWELL-LA SALLE REALTY CO. (two cases).

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