Court Opinion

ID: 9478952
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:04:13.970315+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:44.076257
License: Public Domain

MINER, Circuit Judge:

Preface

We re-visit the doctrine of fair use in this action for copyright infringement brought to enjoin publication of the biography of Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hub*577bard and to recover damages for the alleged infringement. The biography, written by Russell Miller, who is not a party to the action, is entitled: Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard (hereafter “the book” or “the biography”). The plaintiff in the suit, appellant here, is New Era Publications International, ApS (“New Era”), a Danish corporation. It holds by license certain copyrights bequeathed to the Church of Scientology by Hubbard, who died in 1986. The publisher of the book, Henry Holt and Company, Inc. (“Holt”), is the defendant in the action and the appellee here. New Era’s claim that the extensive reproduction of Hubbard’s published and unpublished writings in the biography amounts to infringement of the copyrights it holds is met by Holt’s defense that the use of the Hubbard materials is “fair” and therefore not infringing within the meaning of the Copyright Act. The district court concluded that the use of the unpublished material “cannot be held to pass the fair use test” and therefore found “that Bare-Faced Messiah to some degree infringes Hubbard’s copyrights in some of his previously unpublished works.” New Era Publications International, ApS v. Henry Holt and Co., 695 F.Supp. 1493, 1524-25 (S.D.N.Y.1988). For various reasons, however, the district court declined to issue an injunction, but instead relegated New Era to the remedy of damages. We affirm, although we conclude that laches is the sole bar to issuance of an injunction.
I.

Procedural History

This action was preceded by lawsuits commenced in 1987 to enjoin publication in England and Canada (each of these suits was dismissed for laches) and in Australia (this suit ultimately was withdrawn). Despite the fact that an attorney representing the Church of Scientology had corresponded with Holt in May of 1986 in an effort to discourage publication of the book, no action to enjoin publication was commenced in the United States until the complaint in this action was filed in the Southern District of New York on May 4, 1988. Immediately after filing the complaint, New Era applied for a temporary restraining order.
Judge Leval, to whom this case was assigned in the district court, initially denied the temporary restraining order for laches, noting the following in a written decision dated May 13, 1988:
Never did the plaintiff take sufficient steps to obtain a copy of the book to determine whether it differed from the books published in England, Australia, and Canada. Never did the plaintiff ask Holt when it would be published. The plaintiff did not take any legal step until May 4 [1988] when it sought the temporary restraining order. By that time, as it turned out, the defendant had published the book, having printed and packed 12,000 copies, and having sent out review copies on April 27. With the exception of 3,000 copies that a trucker had failed to collect and which were waiting on the loading dock, the first printing had been shipped beyond the publisher’s control. To fill additional orders, Holt had scheduled a second print run for May 6.
New Era Publications International, ApS v. Henry Holt and Co., 684 F.Supp. 808, 809-10 (S.D.N.Y.1988).
A week later, on May 20, 1988, after New Era agreed to post an undertaking to indemnify Holt for any “unrecoverable expenses” incurred by Holt during the period of delay, Judge Leval granted a temporary restraining order restraining distribution of the second printing of the book. According to a Stipulation signed by the parties on May 31, 1988 and approved by Judge Leval on June 3, 1988, “unrecoverable expenses” include “a pro rata share of the overhead, with respect to the 10,000 book second printing and any books from the first printing returned to Holt, as a result of the Temporary Restraining Order issued by the Court on May 20, 1988 and incurred with respect to the advance payment to the author, and for advertising and publicity.”
Thereafter, the parties proceeded with an expedited trial on submissions of evidence pertaining to the permanent injunction question. Judge Leval’s opinion and order denying the injunction was issued on Au*578gust 9, 1988 (amended on August 16, 1988) and, on August 11, 1988, a partial judgment was entered “dismissing plaintiffs complaint only insofar as the complaint seeks entry of a permanent injunction.” The judgment recites that trial of the damages issue will not be conducted in the near future; that Holt would be “irreparably harmed” if required to await a final judgment dispositive of all claims; that Holt is entitled to a final judgment denying a permanent injunction; and that “there is no just reason for delaying entry of such judgment.” See Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b).
Also entered in the district court on August 11, 1988 was an order vacating the temporary restraining order but staying the vacatur for three weeks to maintain the status quo ante pending an application for expedited appeal. On August 80,1988, this Court granted New Era’s motion for an expedited appeal and continued the stay until oral argument. Following oral argument, on September 30, 1988, the stay was continued pending the decision of this Court.
II.

The Book

The publisher summarizes the contents of the book in a blurb printed on the book’s jacket:
Bare-Faced Messiah, the biography of L. Ron Hubbard, makes for extraordinary reading. From his early days as a penniless author of “pulp” science fiction stories to his mysterious end, Hubbard was often in the news, usually at odds with society, frequently in trouble with the law. Born in 1911, the son of a struggling Nebraska businessman, he led a wandering, wildly romantic youth in which his dreams and his realities often became confused.
While writing for the pulps in the 1930s he claimed to have made a discovery of such philosophical and psychological importance that it would change the world. From that discovery evolved the “science” of Dianetics which prospered briefly and then foundered in a sea of debt and writs. In 1952 Hubbard founded a far more ambitious program, Scientology, a new religion which claimed to give its adepts the ability to overcome all diseases of the mind and body....
For nearly ten years he sailed the oceans as the commodore of his own private navy, served by nymphet messengers in hot pants who dressed and undressed him and were trained like robots to relay orders in his tone of voice.
His last years were as peripatetic and unsettled as his youth, and far more paranoid. In 1980, fearing arrest, he disappeared and was never seen again. He died in January 1986 under circumstances as mysterious as his enigmatic life itself.
The tone of the book is set in the author’s Introduction:
For more than thirty years, the Church of Scientology has vigorously promoted an image of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, as a romantic adventurer and philosopher whose early life fortuitously prepared him, in the manner of Jesus Christ, for his declared mission to save the world. The glorification of ‘Ron’, superman and saviour, required a cavalier disregard for facts: thus it is that almost every biography of Hubbard published by the church is interwoven with lies, half-truths and ludicrous embellishments. The wondrous irony of this deception is that the true story of L. Ron Hubbard is much more bizarre, much more improbable, than any of the lies.
The author purports to contrast factual and fictional accounts of Hubbard’s life in almost every chapter of the book, drawing upon information gleaned from numerous sources: newspaper stories and other published accounts; personal interviews; letters; memoranda; records of various court proceedings; materials obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from United States government agencies; publications of the Church of Scientology; and Hubbard’s own writings, published and unpublished. Hubbard was a prolific writer, and *579the biography contains liberal quotations from his work, particularly from his unpublished early diaries and journals.
The book proceeds in conventional chronological order, commencing in Chapter 1 (“A Dubious Prodigy”) with accounts of Hubbard’s ancestry and early childhood. The accounts presented by Hubbard are portrayed as exaggerated and untrue. For example, the book contradicts Hubbard’s claims that he was descended from a French Count on his mother’s side; that he grew up on an immense cattle ranch owned by his grandfather in Montana; and that he became a blood brother of the Pikuni Indians before he was ten years of age.
In Chapter 2 (“Whither did he Wander?”), the book refutes Church of Scientology publication descriptions of Hubbard’s teenage travels, said to have been financed by a wealthy grandfather: up and down the coast of China several times and to Tibet (where Hubbard lived with bandits who accepted him into their way of life); in western Manchuria (where he demonstrated his horsemanship to ruling warlords); to an unnamed island in the South Pacific (where he calmed the natives by exploring a cave believed to be haunted); and in the Philippines (where he learned in one night a native language known as Igoroti).
Disputed in Chapter 3 (“Explorer Man-qué”) are claims made in Mission Into Time, a Church of Scientology publication, that Hubbard: spent four years traveling in Asia; undertook the study of nuclear physics at George Washington University in one of the first courses ever taught in that subject at an American university; directed, at the age of twenty, the Caribbean Motion Picture Expedition, which provided research for the University of Michigan and underwater films for the Hydrographic Office; and led the West Indies Mineral Survey, said to be the first complete mineralogical survey of Puerto Rico. According to the book, the truth is that Hubbard traveled in China for two months in the company of his parents during the course of a year-long stay at the United States Naval Station in Guam, where his father was assigned as a naval officer; failed the course in molecular and atomic physics at, and never graduated from, George Washington University; started out to do research in the Caribbean on an expedition that never was completed and never produced any research that could be found at the University of Michigan or the Hydro-graphic Office; and spent some time in Puerto Rico but produced no known record of any mineralogical research there.
Both Chapters 2 and 3 include extensive quotations from Hubbard’s unpublished Asia Diaries of 1927-1929. Some of the quotations found in these chapters are set forth in Judge Leval’s comprehensive opinion and order denying the injunction sought by New Era. See 695 F.Supp. at 1512-13. The Diaries also are quoted at some length in the Chapter 1 accounts of Hubbard’s exploits as a Boy Scout. Id. at 1517. Seventy-three of the 132 passages from Hubbard’s unpublished writings claimed by New Era as infringing are found in the Asia Diaries. Most of the remaining fifty-nine passages are taken from letters written by Hubbard.
In later chapters the book treats with Hubbard’s successes as a pulp and science fiction writer, his admission to membership in the prestigious Explorers Club, his leadership of the “Alaskan Radio-Experimental Expedition” under the Club’s flag, and his 1941 commission as a reserve officer in the United States Navy. It also deals with information contradicting a number of claims made by Hubbard at various times and repeated in authorized publications: that he studied savage peoples and cultures in Central America between 1938 and 1941; that he was an experienced airplane pilot; that he salvaged the careers of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi as a Hollywood script writer; and that he was a seriously wounded war hero who was awarded twenty-one medals, to identify only a few of the contradicted claims.
The book describes how Hubbard brought to light his new “science of Dianetics,” first in an article in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction and then in a book entitled Dianetics, The Modem Science of Mental Health, which became a *580bestseller. In Dianetics, Hubbard claimed to have found “[t]he hidden source of all psychosomatic ills and human aberration” and to have developed advanced techniques to cure mental and physical illnesses. The “new science” gained a large following, the “Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation” was formed, and Hubbard developed a lucrative program for the training of auditors (practitioners) in Dianetic Techniques.
The evolution of Dianetics into Scientology and of Scientology into a religion is fully recounted in the book. As founder of the Church of Scientology, Hubbard is depicted as a charlatan and poseur whose strange religious theories and practices were designed for the financial aggrandizement of the Church, and ultimately of Hubbard himself. See Foley v. Commissioner, 844 F.2d 94, 95-96 (2d Cir.1988). Although Scientology attracted many adherents throughout the world, Hubbard’s activities generated trouble with several governments, including the government of the United States, which challenged the Church’s claim of entitlement to tax-exempt status. See Church of Scientology of California v. Commissioner, 823 F.2d 1310 (9th Cir.1987), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 108 S.Ct. 1752, 100 L.Ed.2d 214 (1988). Having accumulated enormous amounts of money, according to the narrative,
[in] 1967, L. Ron Hubbard raised a private navy, appointed himself Commodore, donned a dashing uniform of his own design and set forth on an extraordinary odyssey, leading a fleet of ships across the oceans variously pursued by the CIA, the FBI, the international press and a miscellany of suspicious government and maritime agencies.
Hubbard was accompanied in his travels on the high seas by his wife, children and a number of associates and assistants. Although he resigned as President of the Church of Scientology, he continued to conduct its affairs from his base at sea.
Hubbard’s surreptitious return to the United States is reported at Chapter 20 (“Running Aground”) and his subsequent excursion into producing films with Scientology themes is described at Chapter 21 (“Making Movies”). Also described in the latter chapter are the convictions on guilty pleas of nine Scientologists, including Hubbard’s wife, for offenses involving the burglary of government offices and the theft of government documents. The book intimates that Hubbard’s wife “took the rap” for a scheme that Hubbard set in motion to purge government records of matter unfavorable to him and to the Church of Scientology. Chapter 22 (“Missing, Presumed Dead”) concludes the book with an account of Hubbard’s mysterious demise.
The book draws extensively upon the published writings of Hubbard in Dianetics and Scientology as well as upon various bulletins Hubbard issued to his followers. Judge Leval found sixty-nine instances of the use of published material in the biography. Since he found all but three of these uses noninfringing or “fair,” the opinion of the district court focuses on the use of previously unpublished materials.
III.

District Court Opinion

Applying the rule of fair use established in the copyright law, 17 U.S.C. § 107, and explicated by the Supreme Court in Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539, 105 S.Ct. 2218, 85 L.Ed.2d 588 (1985), and by this Court in Salinger v. Random House, Inc., 811 F.2d 90 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 108 S.Ct. 213, 98 L.Ed.2d 177 (1987), to the unpublished Hubbard writings quoted in the book under examination, Judge Leval
conclude[s] that there is a body of material of small, but more than negligible size, which, given the strong presumption against fair use of unpublished material, cannot be held to pass the fair use test
and therefore finds,
under mandate of the Salinger opinion, that Bare-Faced Messiah to some degree infringes Hubbard’s copyrights in some of his previously unpublished works.
695 F.Supp. at 1524-25.
The district court’s determination is arrived at after a close examination of the *581statutory fair use factors, which are seen as a means of resolving “the conflict between the justification for copying in serving the objective of public education (in the broadest sense) and the copyright owner’s entitlement to reap the profits of labor and talent invested in creative works.” Id. at 1500. Examining the nature of the copyrighted work, the second statutory fair use factor, 17 U.S.C. § 107(2), the district court opinion reflects on the Supreme Court’s observation that “the scope of fair use is narrower with respect to unpublished works,” Harper & Row, 471 U.S. at 564, 105 S.Ct. at 2232, on our interpretation that “[njarrower ‘scope’ seems to refer to the diminished likelihood that copying will be fair use when the copyrighted material is unpublished,” Salinger, 811 F.2d at 97, and on our pronouncement that “[unpublished] works normally enjoy complete protection against copying any protected expression,” id. The district court, concluding that “diminished likelihood” is not the same as “impossibility” and that “normally” does not mean “inevitably,” concludes that one “who purports to make a fair use of unpublished copyrighted matter must make a particularly compelling demonstration of justification, upon full consideration of the relevant fair use factors.” 695 F.Supp. at 1503-04. According to the district court, Holt has made the necessary showing “[a]s to the great majority of items” by demonstrating “a powerfully compelling fair use purpose.” Id. at 1523.
Turning to the first statutory fair use factor, the purpose and character of the use, 17 U.S.C. § 107(1), the district court opinion first reviews the overall purpose and character of the work and then addresses the fair use purposes of individual passages. As to the former, the court concludes that the biography is “a serious book of responsible historical criticism,” and therefore eligible for fair use consideration despite “defendant’s profit-making objective.” Id. at 1507. As to the latter, the court finds a powerfully compelling fair use purpose in using Hubbard’s own words to reveal Hubbard’s character traits and the bizarre quality of his ideas.
According to the opinion, verbatim quotation is necessary to demonstrate Hubbard’s dishonesty in the accounts he gave of his early life as put forward by the Church of Scientology. “It is incompatible with the ends of fair research and criticism to accuse of dishonesty without being permitted to specify what were the dishonest words.” Id. at 1510. Specific passages must be set out, it is said, to show the subject’s boastfulness, pomposity, grandiosity, pretension and self-importance, because “[i]t is the subject’s conception of himself that the biographer seeks to convey.” Id. at 1512. Hubbard’s paranoia supposedly is demonstrated by certain letters and Church bulletins. The Asia Diaries are quoted “in mockery, to show Hubbard’s bigotry, bias and coarse lack of taste.” Id. at 1513. Cruelty and disloyalty are displayed in two letters having to do with a bigamous marriage, and the employment of Hubbard’s words in this instance is said to “serve[ ] a strong fair use purpose.” Id.
The book quotes from a letter written by Hubbard to the FBI accusing his estranged wife of being a communist, and from bulletins written by Hubbard urging his followers to “attack” those who oppose them, “to illustrate Hubbard’s aggressiveness and vicious scheming tactics against perceived enemies.” Id. Cynicism is illustrated by a letter to a confidant discussing Scientology’s financial potential and in a lecture praising the advantages of deceit. Excerpts taken from Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, a Hubbard work that remains a best seller, The History of Man, a book establishing the foundations of Scientology, and an unpublished letter boasting of Hubbard’s ability to heal are said to provide examples of derangement, insanity and bizarre pseudo-science. There is a compelling fair use purpose as to each of the excerpts, according to the opinion, because “[t]he biographer/critic should not be required simply to express ... conclusions without defending them by example.” Id. at 1517. The opinion views with approval the lifting of various passages from earlier works “to illustrate Hubbard’s egocentric self-perception in his early diaries,” id., and to “convey a capsule character*582ization of the style of Hubbard’s earliest fiction writing,” id. at 1518.
As to the first statutory factor, then, the opinion concludes that the “great majority” of quotations in the book demonstrate “a powerfully compelling fair use purpose that could not be accomplished without use of the subject’s own words” but that “in a few instances of quotation of unpublished material,” there is a “much less compelling fair use justification.” Id. at 1520. The opinion observes that the passages involved in the “few instances” referred to “undoubtedly play a role in filling out the biographer’s portrait” and may “fall short of demonstrating a sufficiently powerful claim of a fair use purpose to satisfy the test of ‘narrower’ scope for unpublished material.” Id.
Examining the third statutory factor, amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, 17 U.S.C. § 107(3), the district court finds New Era’s count of 201 instances of infringement exaggerated but concludes that “there remains a substantial amount of taking of protected expression sufficient to raise a serious problem of copyright infringement if the takings are not protected by fair use.” Id. at 1522. In the opinion of the district court the fourth statutory factor, effect of the use upon the potential market value of the copyrighted work, 17 U.S.C. § 107(4), said by the Supreme Court to be “the single most important element of fair use,” Harper & Row, 471 U.S. at 566, 105 S.Ct. at 2233, cuts in favor of Holt. Because the book “is a hostile, critical biography using fragmentary extracts to demonstrate critical conclusions about” Hubbard, one interested in reading Hubbard’s writings would not be dissuaded by the extracts from purchasing his larger works. 695 F.Supp. at 1523.
The ultimate conclusion of the opinion as to fair use is that the use of published materials is “fair” but that the book is infringing in “some degree” in respect of unpublished materials. That conclusion is arrived at with some reluctance:
As to the book overall, were it not for the ruling of the Court of Appeals in Salinger, I would conclude that fair use has been adequately demonstrated.... Here the demonstration of fair use is far more compelling. Many of the takings of Salinger’s expression were for the purpose of enlivening that text with Salinger’s expressive genius_ Hubbard’s expression is taken primarily to show character flaws in a manner that cannot be accomplished without use of his words.
Id. at 1524. Nevertheless, the district court identifies forty-four passages from unpublished works “as to which a fair use purpose is not convincingly shown,” leading it to observe: “I cannot conclude that the Court of Appeals would accord fair use protection to all of Miller’s quotations, or that the biography as a whole would be considered non-infringing.” Id.
Notwithstanding its recognition of the rule that injunctions generally are granted to prevent copyright infringement, the district court has “no difficulty concluding that this is one of those special circumstances in which the interests of free speech overwhelmingly exceed the plaintiff’s interest in an injunction.” Id. at 1528. Perceiving that Salinger creates a daunting obstacle to a fair use defense against the use of unpublished materials, the district court discerns a need to “focus with new intensity on the potential conflict between the copyright and freedom of speech.” Id. at 1526. Here, according to the opinion of the district court, an injunction would suppress an interesting study of an important figure, with resultant injury to the public interest in free speech. Under such circumstances, an injunction should be denied, since “[a]n award of damages for profits ... can protect the copyright holder with far less injury to the public interest in freedom of speech than an injunction.” Id. at 1527. The permanent injunction sought here is denied by the district court because of the prohibitive expense and waste involved in republishing after deletion of infringing passages, the public’s deprivation of an important historical study and the failure of an injunction to serve any copyright interest, as well as the *583significant injury to free speech. Id. at 1528.
IV.

Analysis

We agree that a permanent injunction should be denied, but for a reason wholly different from any of those set forth in the district court’s opinion. Moreover, we disagree with a great deal of what is said in the opinion.
First, we do not share some of the district court’s views respecting the proper application of the four fair use factors in this case. It seems clear to us that the first statutory fair use factor, purpose of the use, weighs in favor of Holt, while the remaining three factors, nature of the copyrighted work, amount and substantiality of the portion used, and effect of the use upon the market, all weigh in favor of New Era. The book under examination here is no different from the Salinger biography in its statutory fair use purpose classification: “criticism,” “scholarship” or “research.” See Salinger, 811 F.2d at 96. Consonant with Salinger, “we agree with the District Court that the first fair use factor weighs in [Holt’s] favor, but not that the purpose of [its] use entitles [it] to any special consideration.” Id. at 97. The ten- or of the district court opinion is that special consideration should be afforded to Holt, to the extent that Hubbard’s words are quoted to prove some traits of character either at odds with his public image or especially intriguing to the reader. The district court sees a significant distinction in purpose between the use of an author’s words to display the distinctiveness of his writing style and the use of an author’s words to make a point about his character, finding far greater justification in the latter than in the former. We find such a distinction unnecessary and unwarranted in applying the statutory fair use purpose factor. As long as a book can be classified as a work of criticism, scholarship or research, as can the book here, the factor cuts in favor of the book’s publisher, whether the copyrighted matter is taken from a literary lion like J.D. Salinger or a purported prophet like L. Ron Hubbard.
The district court opinion adds a gloss to the second fair use factor — nature of the copyrighted work — that we think should be removed. While we made it clear in Salinger that unpublished works normally enjoy complete protection, the district court would parse this factor also with a distinction. In this instance the distinction is between the use of protected expression to “enliven” text and the use of protected expression to communicate “significant points” about the subject. We see no need for such an approach. Where use is made of materials of an “unpublished nature,” the second fair use factor has yet to be applied in favor of an infringer, and we do not do so here. “Since the copyrighted letters are unpublished, the second factor weighs heavily in favor of [New Era].” Id.
We agree with the district court’s analysis of the third fair use factor and with its finding that a substantial amount of taking remains even after correcting for New Era’s overcounting. Our analysis of the fourth fair use factor, effect of the copyrighted work, differs substantially from that of the district court. Since the district court accepted New Era’s contention that it would commission an authorized biography of Hubbard and that all Hubbard’s writings, published and unpublished, would be made available for that purpose, it is difficult to conclude, as does the district court, that the book published by Holt would have no effect on the market for New Era’s forthcoming book. We disagree with Judge Leval on the application of the fourth fair use factor, as we did in Salinger, finding here as we did there that “some impairment of the market seems likely” and that “[t]he fourth fair use factor weighs slightly in [the copyright owner’s] favor.” Id. at 99.
Following an exhaustive analysis of the doctrine of fair use, the district court finds in any event that a small, but more than negligible, body of unpublished material cannot pass the fair use test, given the strong presumption against fair use of unpublished work. Although we would char*584acterize the use here as more than “small,” it makes no difference insofar as entitlement to injunctive relief is concerned. Since the copying of “more than minimal amounts” of unpublished expressive material calls for an injunction barring the unauthorized use, id. at 96, the consequences of the district court’s findings seem obvious. Nevertheless, the district court denied an injunction for several reasons, one being the existence of special circumstances in which free speech interests were said to outweigh the interests of the copyright owner. We are not persuaded, however, that any first amendment concerns not accommodated by the Copyright Act are implicated in this action. Our observation that the fair use doctrine encompasses all claims of first amendment in the copyright field, Roy Export Co. Establishment v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 672 F.2d 1095, 1099-100 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 826, 103 S.Ct. 60, 74 L.Ed.2d 63 (1982), never has been repudiated. See, e.g., Harper and Row, 471 U.S. at 557, 105 S.Ct. at 2229. An author’s expression of an idea, as distinguished from the idea itself, is not considered subject to the public’s “right to know.” W. Patry, The Fair Use Privilege in Copyright Law 466 (1985).
Nor are we persuaded by any of the other reasons given by the district court for denying an injunction following its rejection of the fair use defense and its finding of infringement. The public would not necessarily be deprived of an “interesting and valuable historical study,” 695 F.Supp. at 1528, but only of an infringing one. The “prohibitive” expense of republication after deletion of improperly included material is without more an inevitable consequence of breach of copyright, and, contrary to the view of the district court, a “significant copyright interest” certainly would be served by an injunction. The Copyright Act is, after all, a device for carrying into effect a Congressional power firmly embedded in our Constitution — “To promote the ... useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors ... the exclusive Right to their respective Writings _” U.S. Const. Art. I, Sec. 8.
Nevertheless, equitable considerations dictate denial of injunctive relief in this action. The prejudice suffered by Holt as the result of New Era’s unreasonable and inexcusable delay in bringing the action invokes the bar of laches. See Goodman v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., 606 F.2d 800, 804 (8th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 913, 100 S.Ct. 1844, 64 L.Ed.2d 267 (1980). In initially denying a temporary restraining order, the district court found that New Era had been aware since 1986 that the book would be published in the United States. Despite this knowledge, and despite lawsuits commenced in 1987 to enjoin publication in England, Canada and Australia, New Era failed to compare Holt’s book with the books published abroad; failed to inquire of Holt as to the planned date of publication in this country; and failed to take any steps to enjoin publication of the book until it sought a restraining order in May of 1988. At the time of the TRO application, 12,000 copies of the book already had been printed, packed and (except for 3,000 copies left on a loading dock) shipped. Review copies had been sent out and a second press run was scheduled for May 6. The district court, in its opinion denying the TRO, commented on the delay and the prejudicial nature of the delay:
[Holt] had made clear since Mr. Rintoul’s defiant letter in the summer of 1986 that it had no interest either in cooperating with [New Era] or in entering into discussions of infringements. There is no good reason why [New Era] should have waited until May [1988] to seek provisional orders of restraint. An earlier application would have permitted the court to explore the issues of law without causing [Holt] catastrophic harm.
684 F.Supp. at 810.
If New Era promptly had sought an adjudication of its rights, the book might have been changed at minimal cost while there still was an opportunity to do so. At this point, however, it appears that a permanent injunction would result in the total destruction of the work since it is not economically feasible to reprint the book after deletion of the infringing material. 695 *585F.Supp. at 1528. Such severe prejudice, coupled with the unconscionable delay already described, mandates denial of the injunction for laches and relegation of New Era to its damages remedy. See West Pub. Co. v. Edward Thompson Co., 176 F. 833, 838 (2d Cir.1910); Hayden v. Chalfant Press, Inc., 177 F.Supp. 303, 307 (S.D.Cal.1959), aff'd, 281 F.2d 543 (9th Cir.1960); Blackburn v. Southern California Gas Co., 14 F.Supp. 553, 554 (S.D.Cal.1936).

Epilogue

The judgment of the district court is affirmed. The stay heretofore granted by this Court is vacated. The mandate shall issue forthwith.