Mitchell Bros. Film Group v. Cinema Adult Theater’s Empirical Analysis
604 F.2d 852 · 1979
Citation profile
23 federal appellate · 8 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 85 later decisions — most recently November 2018 · most notably Original Appalachian Artworks, Inc. v. Toy Loft, Inc. (1982), Lasercomb America, Inc. v. Reynolds (1990)
23 federal appellate · 8 district · 2 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
Relies on Graham v. John Deere Company of Kansas City Calmar Inc · Miller v. California · M'Culloch v. State of Maryland · Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire · Gibbons v. Ogden
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 85 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he alleged wrongdoing of the plaintiff does not bar relief unless the defendant can show that he has personally been injured by the plaintiff's conduct.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Congress need not 'require that each copyrighted work be shown to promote the useful arts.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Obscenity law is a concept not adopted for use as a means for ascertaining whether creative works may be copyrighted. Obscenity as a constitutional doctrine has developed as an effort to create a tolerable compromise between First Amendment considerations and police power. It is an awkward, barely acceptable concept that continues to dog our judicial system and society at large. The purpose underlying the constitutional grant of power to Congress to protect writings is the promotion of original writings, an invitation to creativity. This is an expansive purpose with no stated limitations of taste or governmental acceptability. Such restraints, if imposed, would be antithetical to the promotion of creativity. The pursuit of creativity requires freedom to explore into the gray areas, to the cutting edge, and even beyond. Obscenity, on the other hand, is a limiting doctrine constricting the scope of acceptability of the written word. [At page 856] U * * * “We can only conclude that we must read the facially all-inclusive 1909 copyright statute as containing no explicit or implicit bar to the copyrighting of obscene materials, and as therefore providing for the copyright of all creative works, obscene or non-obscene, that otherwise meet the requirements of the Copyright Act.” At page 858”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Boyd v. State
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.