Court Opinion

ID: 9422358
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:02:15.970074+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:36.130567
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Warren,
with whom Mr. Justice Whittaker concurs,
dissenting.
With respect to those of Admiral Rickover’s speeches written and delivered prior to December 1, 1958,1 would affirm. The record made below and filed here is, I believe, adequate to support the judgment of the Court of Appeals that the Admiral’s practice of distributing numerous copies of his speeches, without limitations as to the persons who would receive them or the purposes to which they would be put by the recipients, and without *118so much as a suggestion of a copyright claim, amounted to a dedication of those works to the public domain. At the same time, I recognize the inadequacy of the present record for determining now whether speeches on which a copyright notice had been placed were effectively protected by that notice from other than “fair use,” and whether Public Affairs intended to make only “fair use” of those works. I would, therefore, also affirm the remand to the District Court ordered by the Court of Appeals as to such speeches.
In the light of these views, I find it unnecessary to pass now on the questions raised in No. 36, and would dismiss that case as premature.