Dolman v. Agee’s Empirical Analysis
157 F.3d 708 · 1998
Citation profile
15 federal appellate · 1 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently August 2023 · most notably Polar Bear Productions, Inc. v. Timex Corp. (2004), Troutt v. Colorado Western Insurance (2001)
15 federal appellate · 1 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
Applies 17 U.S.C. § 504 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 505 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 28 U.S.C. § 1291
Relies on Miller v. Gentry · Feltner v. Columbia Pictures Television, Inc. · Bush v. Vera · Maljack Productions, Inc. v. Goodtimes Home Video Corp. · Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences v. Creative House Promotions, Inc.
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[W]hen one person engages another, whether as employee or as an independent contractor, to produce a work of an artistic nature, . . . in the absence of an express contractual reservation of the copyright in the artist, the presumption arises that the mutual intent of the parties is that the title to the copyright shall be in the person at whose instance and expense the work is done.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Had the works been intended to be works for hire for Victor, there would have been no reason for Southern to accept an invalid assignment of rights from Shield, knowing that its parent company already owned those rights.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The work for hire presumption can be overcome by evidence of an agreement by which the employee or independent contractor retained the copyright in his work.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.