White-Smith Music Publishing Company v. Apollo Company
- White-Smith Music Publishing Company v. Apollo Company
SCOTUSCase
Litigants=White-Smith Music Publishing Company v. Apollo Company
ArgueDateA=January 16
ArgueDateB=17
ArgueYear=1908
DecideDate=February 24
DecideYear=1908
FullName=White-Smith Music Publishing Company, Appt., v. Apollo Company
USVol=209
USPage=1
Citation=28 S. Ct. 319; 52 L. Ed. 655; 1908 U.S. LEXIS 1766
Prior=
Subsequent=
Holding=Music rolls for pianos do not require royalty payments because sheet music copyrights do not cover mechanical parts.
SCOTUS=1906-1909
Majority=Day
JoinMajority="unanimous"
Concurrence=Holmes
LawsApplied=
Superseded=Copyright Act of 1909
"White-Smith Music Publishing Company v. Apollo Company", 209 U.S. 1 (1908), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled that manufacturers of music rolls for player pianos did not have to pay royalties to the composers. The ruling was based on a holding that the piano rolls were not copies of the plaintiffs' copyrighted sheet music, but were instead parts of the machine that reproduced the music.
This case was subsequently eclipsed by Congress's intervention in the form of an amendment to the Copyright Act of 1909, introducing a compulsory license for the manufacture and distribution of such "mechanical" embodiments of musical works.
Issue and relevance
The main issue was whether or not something had to be directly perceptible for it to be a "copy." Naturally, hardly anyone could perceive music by looking at a roll of paper with holes in it. The 1976 Copyright Act later clarified the issue, defining a "copy" as a "material object . . . in which a work is fixed . . . and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, "either directly or with the aid of a machine or device." This case remains relevant because the 1976 Copyright Act makes an "otherwise inexplicable distinction between 'copies' and 'phonorecords.'" [cite book
last = Joyce
first = Craig
coauthors = et al.
title = Copyright Law
publisher = LexisNexis
date = 2006
edition = 7th
pages = 65
id = ISBN 0-8205-7096-6 ]
ee also
* List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 209
References
External links
* [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=209&page=1 Full text opinion from Findlaw.com]
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