Mifflin v. R. H. White Company

Mifflin v. R. H. White Company, 190 U.S. 260 (1903), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the authorized appearance of a work in a magazine without a copyright notice specifically dedicated to that work transfers that work into the public domain.[1] Its opinion was also applied to the next case, Mifflin v. Dutton.[2]

Mifflin v. R. H. White Company
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 30 – May 1, 1903
Decided June 1, 1903
Full case nameMifflin v. R. H. White Company
Citations190 U.S. 260 (more)
23 S. Ct. 769; 47 L. Ed. 1040
Holding
The authorized appearance of a work in a magazine without a copyright notice specifically dedicated to that work transfers that work into the public domain.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Melville Fuller
Associate Justices
John M. Harlan · David J. Brewer
Henry B. Brown · Edward D. White
Rufus W. Peckham · Joseph McKenna
Oliver W. Holmes Jr. · William R. Day
Case opinion
MajorityBrown, joined by unanimous

Background

The case concerned The Professor at the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., published serially in Atlantic Monthly in 1859 without the appropriate copyright notice.[1] The works were later published in a single volume by Houghton Mifflin Co. with payment to Holmes but the R. H. White store also published the same volume claiming it was in the public domain.

Holmes v. Hurst was an earlier Supreme Court case dealing with similar circumstances for Holmes's earlier work, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.[3]

References
  1. Mifflin v. R. H. White Company, 190 U.S. 260 (1903).
  2. Mifflin v. Dutton, 190 U.S. 265 (1903).
  3. Hamlin, Arthur Sears (1904). Copyright Cases. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. pp. 84–86.


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