White-Smith Music Publishing Company v. Apollo Company’s Empirical Analysis
209 U.S. 1 · 1908
Citation profile
141 federal appellate · 33 district · 17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 373 later decisions (25 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios Inc (1984), Mazer v. Stein (1954)
141 federal appellate · 33 district · 17 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedWhite-Smith Music Pub. Co. v. Apollo Co. (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co. · Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony · American Tobacco Company v. Emil Werckmeister · Baker v. Selden
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 373 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'(a) copy is that which comes so near to the original as to give every person seeing it the idea created by the original.' ... (It is) a tangible thing ... the publication and duplication of which it is the purpose of the statute to protect ....”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ ‘What is meant by a copy ? We have already referred to the common understanding of it as a reproduction or duplication of a thing. A definition was given by Bailey, J., in West v. Francis, 5 Bam. & Aid. 743, quoted with approval in Boosey v. Whight, 80 L. T. R. 561. He said: “A copy is that which comes so near to the original as to give to every 'person seeing it the idea created by the original.” ’ * * * “The protection accorded the owner of the copyright is of the intellectual product of the author. It is intended to protect any species of publication which the author selects to embody his literary product.” (Italics ours.)”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“some new collocation of visible or audible points, — of lines, colors, sounds, or words.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.