Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
669 federal appellate · 364 district · 72 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,434 later decisions (35 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. (1991), Riley v. National Federation of Blind of North Carolina, Inc. (1988)
669 federal appellate · 364 district · 72 state decisions — followed in 16 states
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
reviewedHarper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 17 U.S.C. § 102 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 105 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 106 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 107 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 115 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 504 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976)
Relies on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · Vandygriff v. Phillips · Garrison v. State of Louisiana · California State Board of Equalization v. Western Marina Corp.
Cited together with Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios Inc · Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. · Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. · Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H
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 2,434 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.”
209 later decisions quote this exact passage“In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“permits courts to avoid rigid application of the copyright statute when, on occasion, it would stifle the very creativity which that law is designed to foster.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.