Court Opinion

ID: 9447189
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:28:14.411775+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:56.053929
License: Public Domain

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I regret that I cannot join in the judgment of the Court. I would reverse.
Section 10 of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 10, provides that “Any person entitled thereto by this title may secure copyright for his work by publication thereof with the notice of copyright required by this title; and such notice shall be affixed to each copy thereof published or offered for sale in the United States by authority of the copyright proprietor.” The question is whether plaintiffs met the second requirement.
Admittedly, the notice of copyright is not “affixed to each copy” of the copyrighted design on the dresses manufactured and sold by the purchasers that bought cloth from plaintiffs. Indeed, whether the notice remains affixed to any copy is fortuitous, since, as was conceded at the bar, plaintiffs cannot practically obtain any commitments from the manufacturers in this regard. I do not read the Court’s opinion as questioning that the manufacturers make and sell the dresses in this manner “by authority of the copyright proprietor.” Such sales were the very purpose of the purchases of the cloth; plaintiffs knew that the notices would generally be cut off; and I read § 10 as using “authority” in the broad sense of permission and not as requiring any technical agency relationship. It is unnecessary to debate whether the conversion of the designs into dresses was a republication; for it was an offer for sale unless we deny those words the sense they have in everyday speech. I take it no one would question that an authorized offer for sale occurred if the purchasers, with plaintiffs’ acquiescence, regularly cut off the selvage bearing the copyright notice and sold the cloth in strips; I think there was no less such an offer when the purchasers cut off the selvage and sold the cloth in dresses.
I am not altogether clear whether my brothers say that the sale of the dresses was not an offer for sale with the authority of the copyright proprietor or that it was such an offer but that notice need not be affixed if this was not feasible. The latter construction seems borne out by the suggestion that plaintiffs will be denied a final decree if defendant proves that notice could have been affixed to each copy of the design in the dresses without impairing the market value; for, unless the sale of the dresses is within § 10, plaintiffs are under no requirement to have the notice affixed. In any event the result is plain enough. Plaintiffs receive copyright protection for enabling a multitude of ladies to be caparisoned in the purple of “Byzantium” although the copyright notices, instead of being “affixed to each copy” of the design on the dresses, pile up in the cutting rooms. It is of no moment that the Court now grants protection only pendente lite. For the record makes it evident that designs such as plaintiffs’ are anything but Byzantine in longevity —indeed, the moving affidavit gives this one but a few months of life — and in *491litigation of this sort the preliminary rather than the final injunction is the thing.
I could reconcile the majority’s result with the language of § 10 if, but only if, there were clear evidence that the dominant intention of Congress was to afford the widest possible copyright protection whereas the notice requirement was deemed formal or at least secondary. I find nothing to support such a stratified reading of § 10. The notice requirement goes back to almost the earliest days of copyright under the constitutional grant, Act of April 29, 1802, ch. 36, 2 Stat. 171; its essentiality has been emphasized by the highest authority, Mifflin v. R. H. White & Co., 1903, 190 U.S. 260, 23 S.Ct. 769, 47 L.Ed. 1040, Mifflin v. Dutton, 1903, 190 U.S. 265, 23 S.Ct. 771, 47 L.Ed. 1043; Louis Dejonge & Co. v. Breuker & Kessler Co., 1914, 235 U.S. 33, 37, 35 S.Ct. 6, 59 L.Ed. 113 and when Congress has wished to make an exception, it has known how to do so, see 17 U.S.C. § 21. The notice requirement serves an important public purpose; the copyright proprietor is protected so long and only so long as he gives effective warning to trespassers that they are entering on forbidden ground. Mifflin v. R. H. White & Co., supra, 190 U.S. at page 264, 23 S.Ct. at page 771; Shapiro, Bernstein & Co. v. Jerry Vogel Music Co., 2 Cir., 161 F.2d 406, 409, certiorari denied, 1947, 331 U.S. 820, 67 S.Ct. 1310, 91 L.Ed. 1837. And if the statutory requirement of notice has not been met, it is immaterial whether a particular defendant had actual knowledge of a claim of copyright or not. Metro Associated Services v. Webster City Graphic, D.C.D. Iowa 1953, 117 F.Supp. 224, 234.
I realize that the view I hold may seriously impair the use of copyright to prevent piracy in an area where this has been recognized to be rampant for thirty years, Cheney Bros. v. Doris Silk Corp., 2 Cir., 1929, 35 F.2d 279, certiorari denied, 1930, 281 U.S. 728, 50 S.Ct. 245, 74 L.Ed. 1145, and probably for much longer, since it may not be practicable to affix the notice to an inside seam on every repetition of the design. It can be argued also that this is to insist on a useless formality since, though there is reason for requiring notice on each copy of a book, one notice on a dress is as good as ten. But, as was held by the Supreme Court in Dejonge, it is not for the courts to say that something less than the statutory requirement will serve. Congress has not accompanied the broadening of the subjects of copyright in § 5 with a relaxation of the notice requirement of § 10, except as it has simplified the form of notice for certain subjects in § 19 and has saved against accidental omission in § 21. Nothing gives me warrant for belief that Congress would be content with the proprietor’s simply affixing the copyright notice to each copy as it leaves him, when, as here, he knows that almost every notice will be removed before the copyrighted reproductions reach their intended market. As said in Louis Dejonge & Co. v. Breuker & Kessler, supra, 235 U.S. at page 37, 35 S.Ct. at page 6, “The appellant is claiming the same rights as if this were one of the masterpieces of the world, and he must take them with the same limitations that would apply to a portrait, a holy family, or a scene of war.” To be sure, the precise defect held fatal in Dejonge is not present here since the notice was on “each copy” as it left plaintiffs, but Mr. Justice Holmes’ admonition remains pertinent. So also, while I do not contend decision to be controlled by National Comics Publications, Inc. v. Fawcett Publications, Inc., 2 Cir., 1951, 191 F.2d 594, 600, 601, opinion clarified, 198 F.2d 927, Deward & Rich, Inc. v. Bristol Savings & Loan Corp., 4 Cir., 1941, 120 F.2d 537, and Advertisers Exchange, Inc. v. Anderson, 8 Cir., 1944, 144 F.2d 907, these cases are at least closer than those relied on by the District Court in holding for plaintiffs. Perhaps my brothers are right in thinking that Congress wished literal compliance with § 10 to be excused under such circumstances as here; but the voice so audible to them is silent to me.