Falk v. Heffron

• Decision Date: 17 May 1893
• Citation: 56 F. 299
• Parties: FALK v. HEFFRON et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York

56 F. 299

FALK v. HEFFRON et al.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. New York.

May 17, 1893

Isaac N. Falk, (P. Wilcox, of counsel,) for plaintiff.

Allen Lee Smidt, (Frank H. Angell, of counsel,) for defendants.

WHEELER District Judge.

The plaintiff has a copyright of a photograph of Lillian Russell. The defendants printed 2,400 photographic copies of it, 21 or 22 on each of 115 or 116 sheets. This suit is brought to recover 'one dollar for every sheet of the same found in his possession, either printing, printed, copied, published imported, or exposed for sale.' Rey. St. U.S. § 4965. The evidence showed that the defendants sent these copies on an order for that number, but not whether they were in whole sheets, or cut up, when sent. The number of sheets was left to the jury, and was found at 115, with a verdict for the plaintiff for $115. He has moved for a new trial, because the jury were not charged to find $1 for each copy, without regard to the number of sheets on which they were printed.

The original act of May 31, 1790, provided for copyrights of maps, charts, and books; prohibited printing, publishing, or importing copies; forfeited 'all and every copy or copies of such map, chart, book, or books, and all and every sheet and sheets being part of the same, or either of them, to the author or proprietor;' and further provided that every offender and offenders should 'forfeit and pay the sum of fifty cents for every sheet' which should 'be found in his or their possession, either printed or printing published, imported, or exposed to sale.' 1 Stat. 124. Under this statute the unit of forfeiture as to either a book, map, or chart would be a sheet; one ordinary definition of which is 'a broad piece of paper.' In the printer's art it is what is used for one impression, and is distinguished by a signature for the binder. In a suit for this money forfeiture the question would always be, whether with reference to a book, map, or chart, what number of these sheets was found in the possession of the defendant who had printed, published, or imported them. The statute was penal and could not be extended by construction beyond its plain terms, which gave the penalty only once for each such sheet whatever might be printed upon it. Backus v. Gold, 7 How, 798. If more than one copy of a page of a book, or of a map or a chart, should be printed on a sheet, still only one penalty would be incurred, for the...