Brownstein v. Lindsay’s Empirical Analysis
742 F.3d 55 · 2014
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 2 district ·
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 1119 (§ 37 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act)) · 17 U.S.C. § 101 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 103 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 106 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 1324 (§ 502 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) · 17 U.S.C. § 201 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 204 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 407 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976)
Relies on Russello v. United States · Barnhart v. Sigmon Coal Co. · Beck v. City of Pittsburgh · Masquerade Novelty, Inc. v. Unique Industries, Inc. · Barefoot Architect, Inc. v. Bunge
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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“in no way holding that courts are incapable of invaliding underlying copyrights. While the two concepts are undoubtedly related, the distinction matters. Holding that federal courts have the authority to cancel registrations would essentially be declaring that the judicial branch has the authority to order a legislative branch agency that is not a party to the litigation to take an affirmative action.... Courts have no authority to cancel copyright registrations because that authority resides exclusively with the Copyright Office.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he act of registering a copyright does not repudiate co-authorship ... because co-authors are not expected to investigate the copyright register for competing registrations. ... [Otherwise, a] challenger to a plaintiff's authorship could surreptitiously apply for copyright registration of the plaintiff's work to start the statute of limitations running and, if the plaintiff did not discover the registration until three years thereafter, the plaintiff's authorship would be nullified.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“For two or more people to become coauthors, each author must contribute some non-trivial amount of creative, original, or intellectual expression to the work and both must intend that their contributions be combined.... Thus, if Person A writes lyrics to a song and intends for a composer to write the score, Person B who writes the score becomes a co-author in the work.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Marino v. Usher
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.