Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
1968
Citation profile
154 federal appellate · 28 district · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 366 later decisions (30 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios Inc (1984), United States v. Southwestern Cable Co. (1968)
154 federal appellate · 28 district · 23 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
reviewedUnited Artists Television, Inc. v. Fortnightly Corp. (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1292 · 47 U.S.C. § 153
Relies on United States v. Southwestern Cable Co. · White-Smith Music Publishing Company v. Apollo Company · Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, Inc. · Buck v. Jewell-La Salle Realty Co
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 366 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The function of CATV systems has little in common with the function of broadcasters. CATV systems do not in fact broadcast or rebroadcast. Broadcasters select the programs to be viewed; CATV systems simply carry, without editing, whatever programs they receive. Broadcasters procure programs and propagate them to the public; CATV systems receive programs that have been released to the public and carry them by private channels to additional viewers. We hold that CATV operators, like viewers and unlike broadcasters, do not perform the programs that they receive and carry.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a CATV system no more than enhances the viewer's capacity to receive the broadcaster's signals [by] provid[ing] a well-located antenna with an efficient connection to the viewer's television set.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“We have been invited ... to render a compromise decision in this case that would, it is said, accommodate the various competing considerations of copyright, communications, and antitrust policy. We decline the invitation. That job is for Congress.”
4 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.