Stuff v. EC Publications, Inc.
| Decision Date | 02 March 1965 |
| Docket Number | Docket 27909.,No. 292,292 |
| Citation | 342 F.2d 143 |
| Parties | Helen Pratt STUFF, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. E. C. PUBLICATIONS, INC., William M. Gaines, Independent News Co., Crown Publishers, Inc., Ballantine Books, Inc., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Samuel J. Stoll, Jamaica, N. Y. (Feldman & Pollak, New York City, on the brief), for plaintiff-appellant.
Martin J. Scheiman, New York City (Scheiman, Albert & MacLean, New York City, on the brief), for defendants-appellees.
Before SMITH, KAUFMAN and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
Appellant, a holder of a United States copyright on a caricature of a grinning boy, sued defendants, publishers of "Mad" magazine for copyright infringement, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The Court, Lloyd F. MacMahon, District Judge, after trial without a jury, entered judgment dismissing the complaint on the merits. The Court held that the accused picture, a cartoon of a grinning boy to which defendants gave the name "Alfred E. Neuman" was a copy of plaintiff's caricature, "The Original Optimist," also known as "Me-Worry?". He held that plaintiff had the burden of establishing that all copies published by her husband, the original copyright holder, or under his authority, bore the required copyright notice, that she had failed to do so, and that her husband had been derelict in policing the copyright. While we do not necessarily agree with the precise scope of the ruling on burden of proof, the facts found make it clear that relief was properly denied, and we affirm the judgment. It is therefore unnecessary to consider defendants' cross appeal attacking certain of the court's findings.
Appellant's copyright issued in 1914 to her husband, to whom she was married in 1927. After her husband's death in 1938 appellant in 1941 renewed the copyright. Some 2,000 copies of the work had been sold between 1914 and 1920, none by the copyright holders thereafter. Between 1941 and 1948 appellant had received a total of $2850 in settlement of a series of six claims for infringement. Pursuant to the practice at the time of the copyright, the two copies of the work filed in the copyright office had been returned to the owner. Many unauthorized copies of the print had circulated over the years without copyright notice before defendants copied. Identical prints had been copyrighted by at least two persons since 19...
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Lottie Joplin Thomas Trust v. Crown Publishers
...plaintiff permitted unauthorized and uncopyrighted copies to circulate for a significant period of time, see Stuff v. E. C. Publications, Inc., 342 F.2d 143 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 382 U.S. 822, 86 S.Ct. 50, 15 L.Ed.2d 68 (1965) (original copyright proprietor authorized or acquiesced in wi......
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Capitol Records, Inc., v. Naxos of America, Inc.,, 02 Civ. 7890(RWS).
...Publ'g Group, 11 F.Supp.2d 329, 337 (S.D.N.Y.1998); see also Penguin Books, 2000 WL 1028634, at *20 (same). In Stuff v. E.C. Publ'ns, Inc., 342 F.2d 143, 144-45 (2d Cir.1965), the court found abandonment where the copyrighted work "had appeared over a long period of time and ... plaintiffs ......
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Schatt v. Curtis Management Group, Inc.
...the face of wide circulation of copies of his photographs evidence his intent to abandon any claim to copyright. Stuff v. E.C. Publications, Inc., 342 F.2d 143 (2d Cir.1965).6 To support their assertion, defendants ask the Court to find that plaintiff had constructive knowledge, if not actu......
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Rohauer v. Killiam Shows, Inc.
...in Great Britain. 4 S.1361, introduced in the 1st Session of the 92nd Congress. 5 Defendants' reliance on Stuff v. E. C. Publications, Inc., 342 F.2d 143 (2nd Cir. 1965), is misplaced. There plaintiff, the owner of a copyright on a caricature, was found to have abandoned the copyright becau......
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ABANDONING COPYRIGHT.
...world in his diary. Id. (374.) Egner v. E.C. Schirmer Music Co., 48 F. Supp. 187, 188-90 (D. Mass. 1942); see Stuff v. E.C. Publ'ns, Inc., 342 F.2d 143, 144-45 (2d Cir. 1965). Although Stuff does not use the term "abandonment," the court concluded that the work was dedicated to the public d......