List Pub. Co. v. Keller’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 federal appellate · 3 district ·

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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"It is not necessary to adopt this statement unqualifiedly, but it is safe to say that the compiler of a general directory is not at liberty to copy any part, however small, of a previous directory, to save himself the trouble of collecting the materials from original sources. Otherwise, as the matter of rival publications of this kind is identical, there would be practically no copyright in such a book. It is not necessary or reasonable to apply so strict a rule to publications like the present. They are designed to provide a catalogue, in convenient form, of the names and addresses of a selected class of eligible persons. They are original to the extent that the selection is original. Their commercial value depends upon the judgment and knowledge of the author respecting the social standing and society relations of a limited class of the general public. When the selection is made, each compiler must of necessity reproduce the same names and addresses, so far as the selections coincide, and must arrange them in alphabetical order. The law of copyright only requires the subsequent compiler to do for himself that which the first compiler has done. The same sources of original information are open to each. Either of the present parties could lawfully use the general city directory to obtain the correct addresses of the selected persons; nor is it doubted that the defendant had the right to use the complainant’s book for the purpose of verifying the orthography of the names, or ”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Social Register Ass'n v. Murphy · Jeweler's Circular Pub. Co. v. Keystone Pub. Co.

2. ““To constitute an invasion of copyright, it is not necessary that the whole of a work should be copied, nor even a large portion of it, in form or substance. If so much is taken that * * * the labors of the original author are substantially to an injurious extent appropriated, by another, that is sufficient. * * * In the ease of a map, guidebook, or directory, or the like, where there are certain common objects of information which must, if described correctly, be described in the same words, a subsequent compiler is bound to do for himself that which was done by the first compiler. He is not entitled to take one word of the information published without independently working out the matter for himself, so as to arrive at Ihe same result from the same common sources of information.” “Copying is not confined to literal repetition, but in-dudes also tlie various modes in which the matter of any publication may be adopted, imitated, or transferred, with more or less colorable alteration, to disguise the source from which the material is derived.” “Circumstances- altogether inconclusive, if separately considered, may by their number and joint operation, ('specially if corroborated by moral coincidences, be sufficient to constitute full and conclusive proof.” “When a considerable number of passages are proved to have been copied by the copying of the blunders in them, other passages which are the same with the passages in the original book must be presumed, prima facie, to be like”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. West Pub. Co. v. Lawyers' Co-Operative Pub. Co.

3. “‘•In a case like this, when a close resemblance is the necessary consequence of the use of common materials, the instances of the same errors in the two publications affords one of the surest tests of copying. The improbability that both compilers would have made the same mistakes if both had derived their information from independent sources suggests such a cogent presumption of copying by the later compiler from the first that it can be overlooked only by clear evidence to the contrary. Mawman v. Tegg, 2 Russ. 383; Spiers v. Brown, 31 Law T. 16; Lawrence v. Dana, 2 Amer. Law T. Rep. [N. S.] 402, Fed. Cas. No. 8,136.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Frank Shepard Co. v. Zachary P. Taylor Pub. Co.