Osgood v. Allen

18 F. Cas. 871, 3 O.G. 124
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Maine
DecidedNovember 15, 1872
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 18 F. Cas. 871 (Osgood v. Allen) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Maine primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Osgood v. Allen, 18 F. Cas. 871, 3 O.G. 124 (circtdme 1872).

Opinion

SHEPLEY, Circuit Judge.

The complainants are the proprietors and publishers of an illustrated magazine for boys and girls, entitled “Our Young Folks," which has been published monthly, in the city of Boston, under the same title, since December, 1864. Previous to the publication of the first number, the publishers duly entered the title of their magazine for securing the copyright thereof. The publication and sale have been continued in regular monthly numbers by the firm of Ticknor & Fields and their successors, including the complainants; and the copyright of each number was taken out and secured according to' law, previous to its publication. Complainants allege, that, when the copyright of the first number was taken out, the title “Our Yofing Folks” had not been adopted, and was not in use for any other similar publication, and has not been used for any similar publication since, except by the defendant; that they have expended large sums of money in publishing and selling the same; that, by reason of their expenditure, and the care and skill by them bestowed, the magazine has acquired an extensive and valuable reputation throughout the United States and elsewhere as a publication for young people, under the title of “Our Young Folks,” and was a source of profit to complainants.

The defendant, a publisher at Augusta, Me., announced, by advertisements and otherwise, that he would publish, on the first and fifteenth days of each month, commencing October 1, 1871, an illustrated publication for young people, under the title “Our Young Folks’ lllu.strated Paper.” It is admitted that he accordingly did issue a very large edition of his illustrated publication, a copy of which is filed with the proofs in the case; and that, upon demand by the complainants before publication, he refused, and still refuses, to withdraw the announcement of the publication, or to change the title, and has published and sold large numbers under said title.

The complainants claim that they are entitled to a remedy under the law of copyright, and also that they have a right to the exclusive use of the name “Our Young Folks,”' as indicating a periodical, according to the doctrine of trade-marks as applied to the protection of literary publications. It is apparent upon inspection, and not disputed,, that the publications of the complainants- and the defendant are in no respect the same, or even similar, except in the use by both of the words^ “Our Young Folks” as a part of the title.'^yrhe title of the one on the title-page is, “Our Young Folks: an Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls;” of the other. “Our Young Folks’ Illustrated Paper.” Both are illustrated periodicals for the young. The reading mátter and the illustrations are not the same, of similar.

Copyright laws are designed for the encouragement of learning, by securing to authors and their representatives the exclusive-right to the publication of their literary compositions, as patent laws secure to inventors certain exclusive rights in their discoveries. The constitution conferred upon congress the power to promote the progress of science and the useful arts “by securing, for limited* times, to authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries.” Accordingly, in 1790 [1 Stat. 124], congress passed an act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned. This act provided, that the author and authors of any map, chart,, book, or books “shall have the sole right and liberty of printing,- reprinting, publishing, and vending such map, chart, book, or books,, for fourteen years from the time of recording the title thereof.” The remedy provided by this statute was a right of action given to the' proprietor of the copyright, against any person who, without his consent, should publish, sell, or expose to sale, or cause to be-published, sold, or exposed to sale, any copy of such map, chart, book, or books.

The act of 1S70, “to revise, consolidate, and amend the statutes relating to patents and. copyrights,” provides, that the author or proprietors of any books, &c., shall, upon complying with the provisions of this act, have-the sole liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, completing, copying, executing, finishing, and vending the same. The nineteenth section provides, that no person shall be entitled to the benefit of the act unless he shall, before publication, deposit in the-mail, for the librarian of congress, a printed copy of the title of such book, and shall, within ten days after publication, mail to the-librarian two copies of such copyright book. The remedy of the author or proprietor under this statute is against the person who. without the consent in writing of the proprietor of the copyright, shall print, publish, or import, or, knowing the same to be so print[875]*875ed. published, or imported, shall sell or expose to sale, any copy of such book.

By the plain terms of the' statute, the copyright protected is the copyright in “the book,” the word “book” being used to describe any literary composition. Although a printed copy of the title of such book is required, before the publication, to be sent to the librarian of congress, yet this is only as a designation of the book to be copyrighted; and the right is not perfected under the statute until the required copies of such copyright book are, after publication, also sent. It is only as a part of the book, and as the title to that particular literary composition, that the title is embraced within the provision of the act. It may possibly be necessary in some cases, in order to protect the copyrighted literary’ composition, for courts to secure the title from piracy, as well as the other productions of the mind of the author in the book. The right secured by the act, however, is the property in the literary composition, — the product of the mind and genius of the author, and not in the name or title given to it. The title does not necessarily involve any literary composition; it may not 'be, and certainly the statute does not require that it should be, the product of the author's mind. It is not necessary that it should be novel or original. It is a mere appendage, which only identifies, and frequently does not in any way describe, the literary composition itself, or represent its character. By publishing, in accordance with the requirements of the copyright law, a book under the title of the life of any distinguished statesman, jurist, or author, the publisher could not prevent any other author from publishing an entirely different and original biography under the same title. When the title itself is original, and the product of the author’s own mind, and is appropriated by the infringement, as well as the whole, or a part of, the literary composition itself, in protecting the other portions of the literary composition, courts would probably also protect the title. But no case can be found, either in England or this country, in which, under the law of copyright, courts have protected the title alone, separate from the book which it is used to designate. In Jollie v. .Taques [supra], Mr. Justice Nelson says, “The title or name is an appendage to the book or piece of music for which the copyright is taken out and if the latter fails to be protected, the title goes with it as certainly as the principal carries with it the incident.” The only doubt expressed by Mr. Justice Nelson in that case is as to how the question might be decided in case of a valid copyright of a book and an infringement of the title by the defendant.

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Bluebook (online)
18 F. Cas. 871, 3 O.G. 124, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/osgood-v-allen-circtdme-1872.