White-Smith Music Publishing Co. v. Apollo Co.
1908 United States Supreme Court case / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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.
White-Smith Music Publishing Company v. Apollo Company | |
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Argued January 16–17, 1908 Decided February 24, 1908 | |
Full case name | White-Smith Music Publishing Company, Appt., v. Apollo Company |
Citations | 209 U.S. 1 (more) 28 S. Ct. 319; 52 L. Ed. 655; 1908 U.S. LEXIS 1766 |
Holding | |
Music rolls for pianos do not require royalty payments because sheet music copyrights do not cover mechanical parts. | |
Court membership | |
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Case opinions | |
Majority | Day, joined by unanimous |
Concurrence | Holmes |
Superseded by | |
Copyright Act of 1909 |
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.