United States v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
686 F.2d 234 · 1982
Citation profile
28 federal appellate · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 47 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2016 · most notably Dowling v. United States (1985), United States v. Klein (1988)
28 federal appellate · 3 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 United States v. Bass · Whalen v. United States · Marron v. United States · Andresen v. Maryland · Stanford v. Texas
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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied. Transfer of ownership of any material object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[Appellant’s] argument that the mandatory minimum sentence requirements violate the separation of powers doctrine is without force. ‘It is for Congress to say what shall be a crime and how that crime shall be punished____’”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Any person who infringes a copyright willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both: Provided, however, That any person who infringes willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain the copyright in a sound recording afforded by subsections (1), (2), or (3) of section 106 or the copyright in a motion picture afforded by subsection (1), (3), or (4) of section 106 shall be fined not more than $25,000 or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both, for the first such offense and shall be fined not more than $50,000 or imprisoned for not more than two years, or both, for any subsequent offense.”
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.