Fitch v. Shubert’s Empirical Analysis
1937
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently December 1988
8 federal appellate · 2 state decisions
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 St. Paul Plow Works v. Starling · Manners v. Morosco · Silverman v. Sunrise Pictures Corp.
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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[I]t is clear that the plaintiff acquired a new and independent right in the copyright, free and clear of any rights, interests, or licenses attached to the copyright for the initial term. . . . It is evident therefore that all rights which the defendants acquired in 1925 to use the Fitch play as the basis of a musical operetta expired when the copyright for the original term expired in 1928 and when a new grantee appeared as owner of the Fitch play for the renewal term.”
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.