Stromback v. New Line Cinema’s Empirical Analysis
384 F.3d 283 · 2004
Citation profile
16 federal appellate · 5 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 76 later decisions — most recently April 2024 · most notably Mike's Train House, Inc. v. Lionel, L.L.C. (2006), Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc. (2004)
16 federal appellate · 5 district · 1 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
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 1 (§ 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act) · 17 U.S.C. § 102 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 106 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 301 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976)
Relies on Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. · United States v. Gaubert · Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises · Mazer v. Stein
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 76 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Equivalency exists if the right defined by state law may be abridged by an act which in and of itself would infringe one of the exclusive rights. Conversely, if an extra element is required instead of or in addition to the acts of reproduction, performance, distribution or display in order to constitute a state-created cause of action, there is no preemption, provided that the extra element changes the nature of the action so that it is qualitatively different from a copyright infringement claim.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“all legal or equitable rights that are equivalent to any of the exclusive rights within the general scope of copyright as specified by section 106 in works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible medium of expression and come within the subject matter of copyright ... are governed exclusively by this title. Thereafter, no person is entitled to any such right or equivalent right in any such work under the common law or statutes of any State.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[i]nsofar as unauthorized reproduction, distribution, performance, or display causes the plaintiff to lose the benefits that would flow from an actual or prospective contract whereby plaintiff would authorize any such acts, the rights created by the tort of contract interference to the text of the note do not appear to differ qualitatively from rights under copyright; copyright also contemplates loss of actual or prospective contract benefits by reason of such unauthorized acts. Pre-emption in this context would, then, appear to be justified. The fact that the tort, unlike copyright infringement, requires awareness of the conflicting contract and an intentional interference with it merely means that the state-created right is narrower than its copyright counterpart, not that it is qualitatively different so as to preclude pre-emption.”
2 later decisions 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.