Court Opinion

ID: 8125439
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 15:05:41.998553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:39:12.409449
License: Public Domain

Coxe, J.
The section in question must be strictly construed. Backus v. Could, 7 How. 798. No authority has been cited to sustain the proposition that when the piratical prints are out of the possession and beyond the control of the infringer the proprietor of the copyright can recover of him their value in an action at law'. It would require an exceedingly strained construction, almost a distortion of the act, to make it fit the present circumstances. It is no answer to say that the remedy provided by law is ineffective; that the wrong-doer may escape the consequences of his infringement; that the opportunity for redress diminishes in proportion to the success of the infringement, and ceases wholly when the wrong is fully consummated. These arguments might, with great propriety, be addressed to the law-making power, and congress could, perhaps, be induced to render effectual, by a few simple amendments, provisions which, in their present form, are so obviously defective and inadequate. With these considerations, however, the courts have nothing to do. They must deal with the law as it is, not as it ought to be. But even though the statute should be construed in accordance with the plaintiff’s contention, it is not easy to see why the proposition advanced by the defendants, that he has already recovered the value from the lithographic company, and cannot, therefore, recover it again, is not well founded.
The defendants are entitled to judgment.