Edwards & Deutsch Lithographing Co. v. Boorman
| Decision Date | 29 September 1926 |
| Docket Number | No. 3685.,3685. |
| Parties | EDWARDS & DEUTSCH LITHOGRAPHING CO. v. BOORMAN et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Clarence J. Loftus, of Chicago, Ill., for appellant.
Geo. A. Chritton, of Chicago, Ill., for appellees.
Before ALSCHULER, EVANS, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
Suit by appellant against the appellees for infringement of a copyright for an interest and discount time teller. The trial court dismissed the bill for want of equity. No memorandum was filed, but we may assume that the same questions were presented below as were argued here. No question is made as to the regularity of the proceedings to procure the copyright, and the ownership is admitted. Since 1915 appellant has for each successive year prepared, printed, published, and distributed the copyrighted work under the title of "Heinz Interest and Discount Time Teller." Recently appellees put out a similar compilation, and in defense of this suit urge, first, that the copyright is invalid, the insistence on this point being that the subject-matter is not copyrightable; and, second, that their production, which they call a "maturity calendar," does not infringe.
The copyright statute, in naming the classes of works for which copyright may be claimed, in section 5 (Comp. St. § 9521) specifies: "(a) Books, including composite and cyclopedic works, directories, gazeteers and other compilations." The Century Dictionary defines compilation as "(2) the gathering of materials for books, documents, tables, etc., from existing sources;" and (3) that which is compiled." Appellant in its brief well says that its "copyrighted publication comprises a new, original arrangement, combination, and collocation of matter forming a composite work, having two separate pages for each business day, each pair of pages carrying a comprehensive diagram, so arranged, composed, and positioned in contrasting colors, with words, markings, and numerals, as to furnish at a glance to the banker, without computation, practically all information pertaining to time on commercial paper."
The appellant seeks to protect a copyright upon a certain combination of words, figures, and symbols in contrasting colors, so selected, ordered, and arranged as to give the banker "at a glance" the information desired. Under the authorities, and in the view of the copyright law, this time teller is a writing and the person designing and producing it is an author. Under the statute, giving words therein used their proper signification, the appellant's publication is at least a compilation. Copyright Bulletin No. 15, defining what may be copyrighted under the term "books," says: "The term `book,' as used in the law, includes tabulated forms of information, frequently called charts, tables of figures showing the results of mathematical computation, such as logarithmic tables, interest, cost and wage tables."
By administrative construction appellant's publication is a book. "Copyright may justly be claimed by an author of a book who has taken existing materials from sources common to all writers, and arranged and combined them in a new form, and given them an application unknown before, for the reason that, in so doing, he has exercised skill...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Stanley v. Columbia Broadcasting System
...selections, arrangements and combinations has entailed the exercise of skill, discretion and creative effort. Edwards & Deutsch Lithographing Co. v. Boorman, 7 Cir., 15 F.2d 35. 'If the author has accomplished a unique and useful result through the application of intellectual labor and lite......
-
Continental Casualty Company v. Beardsley
...686 (infringement by a former employee); Smith v. Thompson, D.C. S.D.Cal.1941, 43 F.Supp. 848, 850 (same); Edwards & Deutsch Lithographing Co. v. Boorman, 7 Cir., 15 F. 2d 35, certiorari denied 1926, 273 U.S. 738, 47 S.Ct. 247, 71 L.Ed. 867 (infringement by one who had access because of a c......
-
Roberts v. Dahl, 55927
...the arrangement, and the combination of materials contained in the composition. Edwards & Deutsch Lithographing Co. v. Boorman (7th Cir.), 15 F.2d 35, certiorari denied 273 U.S. 738, 47 S.Ct. 247, 71 L.Ed. 867. . . . Internal proof of access may rest in an identity of words or in the parall......
-
Universal Pictures Co. v. Harold Lloyd Corporation
...of Movie Crazy was original, was it not? "The Court: As far as you know? A. As far as I know, yes." 6 In Edwards & Deutsch Lithographing Co. v. Boorman, 7 Cir., 15 F.2d 35, 36, it was stated: "The materials used are all old and in the public domain, but the selection, the ordering and arran......
-
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS INDEPENDENT CREATION, AND IT'S A GOOD THING, TOO.
...the arrangement, and the combination of materials contained in the composition." (citing Edwards & Deutsch Lithographic Co. v. Boorman, 15 F.2d 35 (7th Cir. 1926))), reargued. 94 F.2d 1023 (2d Cir. (84.) See Bucklew v. Hawkins, Ash, Baptie & Co., 329 F.3d 923, 926 (7th Cir. 2003). (......
-
Ghosts in the Hit Machine: Musical Creation and the Doctrine of Subconscious Copying
...a necessary element in the problem if there has been a subconscious but actual copying.”); Edwards & Deutsch Lithographing Co. v. Boorman, 15 F.2d 35, 37 (7th Cir. 1926) (“One may copy from memory . . . and this may be done without conscious plagiarism.”). 31. Fred Fisher , 298 F. at 146. 3......