887 F. Supp. 481 - Patrick v. Francis’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 1 district ·

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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Plaintiffs first cause of action alleges that defendants’ publication of the project without plaintiff’s knowledge or permission constitutes an unlawful conversion. What this cause of action actually seeks is to recover for the unauthorized copying of plaintiff’s work. The Copyright Act covers such conduct, and a conversion claim contains no elements qualitatively different from plaintiff's rights under the Copyright Act. Plaintiff's conversion claim is preempted. Plaintiff further alleges that the same actions of defendants constitute "unlawful competition.” She offers no extra qualitative element for this claim either. The unlawful competition claim merely challenges defendants’ allegedly unauthorized copying of her work. The Second Circuit has held that unfair competition and misappropriation claims grounded solely in the copying of plaintiff's protected expression are preempted by section 301. Since plaintiff's unfair competition claim is equivalent to copyright, federal copyright law provides the exclusive means of relief. Plaintiff's unjust enrichment cause of action is similarly preempted. The claim that the unauthorized copying of plaintiff’s work unjustly enriched defendants is equivalent to exclusive rights within the general scope of copyright.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Rommel v. Laffey