Colliery Engineer Co. v. United Correspondence Schools Co.
| Decision Date | 04 April 1899 |
| Citation | 94 F. 152 |
| Parties | COLLIERY ENGINEER CO. v. UNITED CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOLS CO. et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Livingston Gifford and George H. Pettit, for the motion.
The great bulk of the papers filed on this motion and the difficulties inherent in the nature of the questions involved have delayed this decision, greatly to the court's regret, far beyond the time originally intended. It is manifest that the various pamphlets declared upon are proper subjects of copyright. It seems equally clear that, under his contract, which made it Ewald's duty while a salaried employe of complainant, inter alia, to compile, prepare, and revise the instruction and question papers, the literary product of such work became the property of the complainant which it was entitled to copyright, and which, when copyrighted, Ewald would have no more right than any stranger to copy or reproduce. There is a strong equity in favor of complainant, arising out of the fact that defendants' circular of information opens with statements evidently calculated to induce a belief that their school is the same as, or else a successor of, the complainant's. The motion, however, must be decided, not upon collateral equities, but according to the principles of the law of copyright. The fundamental question is one of fact, viz. are defendants' pamphlets compilations borrowed to a substantial extent from complainant's copyrighted compilations, or are they independent compilations from the original sources? In view of the affidavit of Mrs. Gross, the direct evidence of piracy given by Roden should not be accepted as conclusive upon preliminary motion. The judge who hears the cause at final hearing will have the benefit of cross-examination of both witnesses, and can decide whose is the more truthful statement. There are undoubtedly very many closely parallel passages. If the first work were original it would be entirely clear that the second is a copy; but the first work is itself a compilation, using largely the language of the original books, from which it is taken. Moreover, the very nature of the subject-matter treated of in both series-- arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry etc.-- is such that similarities of definition, explanation and examples are not so persuasive as they might be were the subject history, literature, art, law, etc. Besides, if it thought that, although Ewald was...
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Community For Creative v. Reid
...ownership involving works produced by persons whom all parties agreed were employees. See, e.g., Colliery Engineer Co. v. United Correspondence Schools Co., 94 F. 152 (CC SDNY 1899); Little v. Gould, 15 F.Cas. 612 (No. 8,395) (CC NDNY 1852). This Court first took note of the work for hire d......
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...by virtue of the assignment upon which it relies. National Cloak & Suit Co. v. Kaufman (C. C.) 189 F. 215; Colliery Engineer Co. v. United Correspondence Schools Co. (C. C.) 94 F. 152; Bisel v. Ladner, 1 F.(2d) 436 (C. C. A. The appellants' counterclaim was properly dismissed by the trial c......
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Williams v. Weisser
...jingles (Brown v. Molle Co., D.C., 20 F.Supp. 135), lists of courses taught by a correspondence school (Colliery Engineer Co. v. United Correspondence Schools Co., C.C., 94 F. 152), treatises on the use of ozone (United States Ozone Co. v. United States Ozone Co., 7 Cir., 62 F.2d 881) or on......
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