Hogan v. DC Comics’s Empirical Analysis
1999
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 3 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 33 later decisions — most recently August 2020 · most notably Cavalier v. Random House, Inc. (2002), R.F.M.A.S., Inc. v. Mimi So (2009)
2 federal appellate · 3 district ·
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
Relies on Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. · Scotto v. Almenas · Goenaga v. March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation
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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Upon any work, and especially upon a play, a great number of patterns of increasing generality will fit equally well, as more and more of the incident is left out. The last may perhaps be no more than the most general statement of what the play is about, and at times might consist only of its title; but there is a point in this series of abstractions where they are no longer protected, since otherwise the playwright could prevent the use of his ‘ideas,’ to which, apart from their expression, his property is never extended.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Porto v. Guirgis“attributes and traits as well as the extent to which the defendants' characters capture the 'total concept and feel' of figures in [plaintiff's work].”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“A stock character or basic character type, however, is not entitled to copyright protection.”
1 later decision 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.