Judicial Approach to Copyright Infringement
![handle is hein.journals/idea27 and id is 193 raw text is: JUDICIAL APPROACH
TO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
ARLENE C. HALLIDAY*
I. INTRODUCTION
In truth, in literature, in science and in art, there are, and can be, few, if
any new and original thoughts. Every book in literature, science and art,
borrows, and must necessarily borrow, and use much which was well known
and used before. No man writes exclusively from his own thoughts, unaided
and uninstructed by the thought of others. The thoughts of every man are,
more or less, a combination of what other men have thought and expressed,
although they may be modified, exalted, or improved by his own genius or
reflection. If no book could be the subject of copyright which was not new
and original in the elements of which it is composed, there could be no ground
for any copyright in modern times, and we should be obliged to ascend very
high, even in antiquity, to find a work entitled to such eminence. Virgil bor-
rowed much from Homer; Bacon drew from earlier as well as contemporary
minds; Coke exhausted all the known learning of his profession; and even
Shakespeare and Milton, fare] found to have gathered much from the abun-
dant stores of current knowledge and classical studies in their days.'
The Constitution provides that Congress shall have the power to pro-
mote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited time
to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings
and discoveries'2 To further the progress of science and useful arts, Con-
gress has passed copyright legislation which affords copyright protec-
*Juris Doctor, Franklin Pierce Law Center, 1985. Member New Hampshire and Maine Bars.
Emerson v. Davies, 8 Fed. Cas. 615, 619 (No. 4436) (D. Mass. 1845) reprinted in Yank-
wich, Intent and Related Problems in Plagiarism, 33 S. Cal. L. Rev. 233, 236 (1960).
U.S Const., Act I, § 8, Cl 8.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/idea27&div=21&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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