Although U.S. Copyright law originates from Title 17 as shown in the box at the left, there are some important cases. Some of the more recent important cases are listed below:
MGM Studies, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., 545 U.S. 931 (2005): Copyright holders including songwriters, music publishers, and motion picture studios brought copyright infringement action against distributors of peer-to-peer file sharing computer networking software. The Supreme Court held that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.
Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003): Various businesses and individuals who used formerly copyrighted works that had since fallen into the public domain contested a new law that extended copyright limits under the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (CTEA). The Supreme Court held that CTEA did not violate the plaintiff's First Amendment Rights and CTEA did not violate the consitutional requirement that copyrights only endure for limited times. This case gave congress considerable latitute in setting copyright limits.
Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., Inc., 499 U.S. 340, 363-64 (1991): In this case, a telephone company sued others for copying its telephone number directory. The Supreme Court concluded that: "We conclude that the names, towns, and
telephone numbers copied by
Feist were not original to
Rural and therefore were not protected by the copyright in
Rural's combined white and yellow pages directory. As a constitutional matter, copyright protects only those constituent elements of a work that possess more than a
de minimis quantum of creativity. . . . This decision should not be construed as demeaning
Rural's efforts in compiling its directory, but rather as making clear that copyright rewards originality, not effort." This case set the standard for creativity for a work. A work must be independently created by the author as opposed to being copied from other works and it must possess some degree of creativity.
Hoehling v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 618 F.2d 972 (2d Cir. 1980): A historical work that relied much on facts which established that facts are not original and not copyrightable. Therefore, a work that conveys mostly facts and theories has less copyright protection.
Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985): Harper Row Magazine published unauthorized quotes from President' Ford's memoir and claimed fair use. However, the Supreme Court held that magazine's unauthorized
publication of verbatim quotes from essentially the “heart” of unpublished presidential memoirs, which was intended to supplant copyright holders' commercially valuable right of first
publication, was not a “fair use” within meaning of Copyright Revision Act.
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569 (1994): A song writer took a romantic Roy Orbison song and made it into cynical parody. The court held that the commercial nature of the parody did not rule out fair use and that parody by its nature must use a small amount of the original to make its point. The court emphasized a balanced analysis of the four prongs to the fair use exemption.
