Stein v. Rosenthal’s Empirical Analysis
1952
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 4 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 13 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 1994
4 federal appellate · 4 district ·
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co. · Chas. D. Briddell, Inc. v. Alglobe Trading Corp. · Fleischer Studios, Inc. v. Ralph A. Freundlich, Inc. · King Features Syndicate v. Fleischer · Park-In-Theatres, Inc. v. Perkins
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Copyright protection is not reserved exclusively to proprietors who do not intend to earn money by commercialisation of their art.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Stein v. Mazer · Stein v. Benaderet““The photographs of the statuettes deposited with the Copyright Office, as part of the claimed copyright in a reproduction of a work of art, are photographs of mere statues alone without electrical assemblies, lamp shades, lamp mounting stubs or any other addition to the purely artistic sculpture. Insofar as the copyright registration shows, the several works registered are statues only. There is no suggestion in any of the several claims to copyright of any claim except the form of the figures. There are no mechanical or utilitarian aspects to the statues. None of the claims to copyright suggest any utilitarian use and if adaptability to such a purpose were to be sought solely from examination of the copyrighted material, the result would be negative.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Stein v. Mazer““Having qualified for registration by reason of its purely artistic character, the question presented is whether an intent on the part of the claimant to copy such protected sculpture in such a way as to artistically enhance some separate and utilitarian article of manufacture destroys the right to copyright. The argument that this is so is but another vehicle to carry defendants’ philosophy that if the artist intends to profit by his creation he cannot acquire protection. To uphold this argument would be to require the Judicial inquiry to plumb the mind of every copyright proprietor and determine his plans and intentions as of the time of registration. This impossibility is not contemplated by the Statute.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Stein v. Mazer
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.