
Supreme Court of the United States
HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS, INC. and the Reader's Digest
Association, Inc.,
Petitioners
v.
NATION ENTERPRISES and the Nation Associates, Inc.
No. 83-1632.
Argued Nov. 6, 1984.
Decided May 20, 1985.
Copyright infringement action was brought arising out of magazine's unauthorized
publication of verbatim quotes from President Ford's memoirs. The United States
District Court, the Southern District of New York, 557 F.Supp. 1067, entered
judgment in favor of copyright holders. The United States Court of Appeals for
the Second Circuit, 723 F.2d 195, reversed the District Court's finding of infringement,
holding that defendant magazine's act was sanctioned as a "fair use"
of the copyrighted material, and copyright holders petitioned for a writ of
certiorari. The Supreme Court, Justice O'Connor, 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publication of verbatim quotes from essentially the "heart" of unpublished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.
Reversed and remanded.
Justice Brennan filed dissenting opinion in which Justice White and Justice
Marshall joined.
**2219 *539 Syllabus [FN*]
FN* The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321, 337, 26 S.Ct. 282, 287, 57 L.Ed. 499.
In 1977, former President Ford contracted with petitioners to publish his as
yet unwritten memoirs. The agreement gave petitioners the exclusive first serial
right to license prepublication excerpts. Two years later, as the memoirs were
nearing completion, petitioners, as the copyright holders, negotiated a prepublication
licensing agreement with Time Magazine under which Time agreed to pay $25,000
($12,500 in advance and the balance at publication) in exchange for the right
to excerpt 7,500 words from Mr. Ford's account of his pardon of former President
Nixon. Shortly before the Time article's scheduled release, an unauthorized
source provided The Nation Magazine with the unpublished Ford manuscript. Working
directly from this manuscript, an editor of The Nation produced a 2,250-word
article, at least 300 to 400 words of which consisted of verbatim quotes of
copyrighted expression taken from the manuscript. It was timed to "scoop"
the Time article. As a result of the publication of The Nation's article, Time
canceled its article and refused to pay the remaining $12,500 to petitioners.
Petitioners then brought suit in Federal District Court against respondent publishers
of The Nation, alleging, inter alia, violations of the Copyright Act (Act).
The District Court held that the Ford memoirs were protected by copyright at
the time of The Nation publication and that respondents' use of the copyrighted
material constituted an infringement under the Act, and the court awarded actual
damages of $12,500. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that The Nation's
publication of the 300 to 400 words it identified as copyrightable expression
was sanctioned as a "fair use" of the copyrighted material under §
107 of the Act. Section 107 provides that notwithstanding the provisions of
§ 106 giving a copyright owner the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted
work and to prepare **2220 derivative works based on the copyrighted work, the
fair use of a copyrighted work for purposes such as comment and news reporting
is not an infringement of copyright. Section 107 further provides that in determining
whether the use was fair the factors to be considered shall include: (1) the
purpose and character of the use; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3)
the substantiality of the portion used in relation to the *540 copyrighted work
as a whole; and (4) the effect on the potential market for or value of the copyrighted
work.
Held: The Nation's article was not a "fair use" sanctioned by §
107. Pp. 2221-2235.
(a) In using generous verbatim excerpts of Mr. Ford's unpublished expression
to lend authenticity to its account of the forthcoming memoirs, The Nation effectively
arrogated to itself the right of first publication, an important marketable
subsidiary right. Pp. 2223-2225.
(b) Though the right of first publication, like other rights enumerated in §
106, is expressly made subject to the fair use provisions of § 107, fair
use analysis must always be tailored to the individual case. The nature of the
interest at stake is highly relevant to whether a given use is fair. The unpublished
nature of a work is a key, though not necessarily determinative, factor tending
to negate a defense of fair use. And under ordinary circumstances, the author's
right to control the first public appearance of his undisseminated expression
will outweigh a claim of fair use. Pp. 2225-2228.
(c) In view of the First Amendment's protections embodied in the Act's distinction
between copyrightable expression and uncopyrightable facts and ideas, and the
latitude for scholarship and comment traditionally afforded by fair use, there
is no warrant for expanding, as respondents contend should be done, the fair
use doctrine to what amounts to a public figure exception to copyright. Whether
verbatim copying from a public figure's manuscript in a given case is or is
not fair must be judged according to the traditional equities of fair use. Pp.
2228-2231.
(d) Taking into account the four factors enumerated in § 107 as especially
relevant in determining fair use, leads to the conclusion that the use in question
here was not fair. (i) The fact that news reporting was the general purpose
of The Nation's use is simply one factor. While The Nation had every right to
be the first to publish the information, it went beyond simply reporting uncopyrightable
information and actively sought to exploit the headline value of its infringement,
making a "news event" out of its unauthorized first publication. The
fact that the publication was commercial as opposed to nonprofit is a separate
factor tending to weigh against a finding of fair use. Fair use presupposes
good faith. The Nation's unauthorized use of the undisseminated manuscript had
not merely the incidental effect but the intended purpose of supplanting the
copyright holders' commercially valuable right of first publication. (ii) While
there may be a greater need to disseminate works of fact than works of fiction,
The Nation's taking of copyrighted expression exceeded that necessary to disseminate
the facts and infringed the copyright holders' interests in confidentiality
and creative control over the first public appearance of the work. (iii) Although
the verbatim quotes *541 in question were an insubstantial portion of the Ford
manuscript, they qualitatively embodied Mr. Ford's distinctive expression and
played a key role in the infringing article. (iv) As to the effect of The Nation's
article on the market for the copyrighted work, Time's cancellation of its projected
article and its refusal to pay $12,500 were the direct effect of the infringing
publication. Once a copyright holder establishes a causal connection between
the infringement and loss of revenue, the burden shifts to the infringer to
show that the damage would have occurred had there been no taking of copyrighted
expression. Petitioners established a prima facie case of actual damage that
respondents failed to rebut. More important,**2221 to negate a claim of fair
use it need only be shown that if the challenged use should become widespread,
it would adversely affect the potential market for the copyrighted work. Here,
The Nation's liberal use of verbatim excerpts posed substantial potential for
damage to the marketability of first serialization rights in the copyrighted
work. Pp. 2231 - 2235.
723 F.2d 195 (CA2 1983), reversed and remanded.
Edward A. Miller argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were
Barbara Hufham and David Otis Fuller, Jr.
Floyd Abrams argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Devereux
Chatillon, Carol E. Rinzler, Andrew L. Deutsch, and Leon Friedman.*
* Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Association of American
Publishers, Inc., by Jon A. Baumgarten and Charles H. Lieb; and for Volunteer
Lawyers for the Arts, Inc., by I. Fred Koenigsberg.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Pen American Center
by Stephen Gillers; and for Gannett Co., Inc., et al. by Melville B. Nimmer,
Benjamin W. Heineman, Jr., Alice Neff Lucan, and Robert C. Lobdell.
Justice O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case requires us to consider to what extent the "fair use" provision
of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976, (hereinafter *542 the Copyright Act)
17 U.S.C. § 107, sanctions the unauthorized use of quotations from a public
figure's unpublished manuscript. In March 1979, an undisclosed source provided
The Nation Magazine with the unpublished manuscript of "A Time to Heal:
The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford." Working directly from the purloined
manuscript, an editor of The Nation produced a short piece entitled "The
Ford Memoirs--Behind the Nixon Pardon." The piece was timed to "scoop"
an article scheduled shortly to appear in Time Magazine. Time had agreed to
purchase the exclusive right to print prepublication excerpts from the copyright
holders, Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. (hereinafter Harper & Row), and
Reader's Digest Association, Inc. (hereinafter Reader's Digest). As a result
of The Nation article, Time canceled its agreement. Petitioners brought a successful
copyright action against The Nation. On appeal, the Second Circuit reversed
the lower court's finding of infringement, holding that The Nation's act was
sanctioned as a "fair use" of the copyrighted material. We granted
certiorari, 467 U.S. 1214, 104 S.Ct. 2655, 81 L.Ed.2d 362 (1984), and we now
reverse.
I
In February 1977, shortly after leaving the White House, former President Gerald
R. Ford contracted with petitioners Harper & Row and Reader's Digest, to
publish his as yet unwritten memoirs. The memoirs were to contain "significant
hitherto unpublished material" concerning the Watergate crisis, Mr. Ford's
pardon of former President Nixon and "Mr. Ford's reflections on this period
of history, and the morality and personalities involved." App. to Pet.
for Cert. C-14--C-15. In addition to the right to publish the Ford memoirs in
book form, the agreement gave petitioners the exclusive right to license prepublication
excerpts, known in the trade as "first serial rights." Two years later,
as the memoirs were nearing completion, petitioners negotiated a prepublication
licensing agreement with Time, a weekly news magazine. Time agreed to pay $25,000,
$12,500 in advance and an *543 additional $12,500 at publication, in exchange
for the right to excerpt 7,500 words from Mr. Ford's account of the Nixon pardon.
The issue featuring the excerpts was timed to appear approximately one week
before shipment of the full length book version to bookstores. Exclusivity was
an important consideration; Harper & Row instituted procedures designed
to maintain the confidentiality of the manuscript, and Time retained the right
to renegotiate the second payment should the material appear in print prior
to its release of the excerpts.
Two to three weeks before the Time article's scheduled release, an unidentified
person secretly brought a copy of the Ford manuscript to Victor Navasky, editor
of The Nation, a political commentary magazine. Mr. Navasky knew that his possession
of the manuscript was not authorized and that the manuscript must be returned
quickly to his "source" to avoid discovery. 557 F.Supp. 1067, 1069
(SDNY 1983). He hastily put together what he believed was "a real hot news
story" composed of **2222 quotes, paraphrases, and facts drawn exclusively
from the manuscript. Ibid. Mr. Navasky attempted no independent commentary,
research or criticism, in part because of the need for speed if he was to "make
news" by "publish[ing] in advance of publication of the Ford book."
App. 416-417. The 2,250-word article, reprinted in the Appendix to this opinion,
appeared on April 3, 1979. As a result of The Nation's article, Time canceled
its piece and refused to pay the remaining $12,500.
Petitioners brought suit in the District Court for the Southern District of
New York, alleging conversion, tortious interference with contract, and violations
of the Copyright Act. After a 6-day bench trial, the District Judge found that
"A Time to Heal" was protected by copyright at the time of The Nation
publication and that respondents' use of the copyrighted material constituted
an infringement under the Copyright Act, §§ 106(1), (2), and (3),
protecting respectively the right to reproduce the work, the right to license
preparation of derivative works, and the right of first distribution of *544
the copyrighted work to the public. App. to Pet. for Cert. C-29--C- 30. The
District Court rejected respondents' argument that The Nation's piece was a
"fair use" sanctioned by § 107 of the Act. Though billed as "hot
news," the article contained no new facts. The magazine had "published
its article for profit," taking "the heart" of "a soon-to-be-published"
work. This unauthorized use "caused the Time agreement to be aborted and
thus diminished the value of the copyright." 557 F.Supp., at 1072. Although
certain elements of the Ford memoirs, such as historical facts and memoranda,
were not per se copyrightable, the District Court held that it was "the
totality of these facts and memoranda collected together with Ford's reflections
that made them of value to The Nation, [and] this ... totality ... is protected
by the copyright laws." Id., at 1072-1073. The court awarded actual damages
of $12,500.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed. The
majority recognized that Mr. Ford's verbatim "reflections" were original
"expression" protected by copyright. But it held that the District
Court had erred in assuming the "coupling [of these reflections] with uncopyrightable
fact transformed that information into a copyrighted 'totality.' " 723
F.2d 195, 205 (CA2 1983). The majority noted that copyright attaches to expression,
not facts or ideas. It concluded that, to avoid granting a copyright monopoly
over the facts underlying history and news, " 'expression' [in such works
must be confined] to its barest elements--the ordering and choice of the words
themselves." Id., at 204. Thus similarities between the original and the
challenged work traceable to the copying or paraphrasing of uncopyrightable
material, such as historical facts, memoranda and other public documents, and
quoted remarks of third parties, must be disregarded in evaluating whether the
second author's use was fair or infringing.
"When the uncopyrighted material is stripped away, the article in The Nation
contains, at most, approximately *545 300 words that are copyrighted. These
remaining paragraphs and scattered phrases are all verbatim quotations from
the memoirs which had not appeared previously in other publications. They include
a short segment of Ford's conversations with Henry Kissinger and several other
individuals. Ford's impressionistic depictions of Nixon, ill with phlebitis
after the resignation and pardon, and of Nixon's character, constitute the major
portion of this material. It is these parts of the magazine piece on which [the
court] must focus in [its] examination of the question whether there was a 'fair
use' of copyrighted matter." Id., at 206.
Examining the four factors enumerated in § 107, see infra, at 2224, n.
2, the majority found the purpose of the article was "news reporting,"
the original work was essentially factual in nature, the 300 words appropriated
were insubstantial in relation to the 2,250-word piece, and the impact on the
market for the original was minimal as **2223 "the evidence [did] not support
a finding that it was the very limited use of expression per se which led to
Time's decision not to print the excerpt." The Nation's borrowing of verbatim
quotations merely "len[t] authenticity to this politically significant
material ... complementing the reporting of the facts." 723 F.2d, at 208.
The Court of Appeals was especially influenced by the "politically significant"
nature of the subject matter and its conviction that it is not "the purpose
of the Copyright Act to impede that harvest of knowledge so necessary to a democratic
state" or "chill the activities of the press by forbidding a circumscribed
use of copyrighted words." Id., at 197, 209.
II
We agree with the Court of Appeals that copyright is intended to increase and
not to impede the harvest of knowledge. But we believe the Second Circuit gave
insufficient deference to the scheme established by the Copyright Act for *546
fostering the original works that provide the seed and substance of this harvest.
The rights conferred by copyright are designed to assure contributors to the
store of knowledge a fair return for their labors. Twentieth Century Music Corp.
v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151, 156, 95 S.Ct. 2040, 2043, 45 L.Ed.2d 84 (1975).
Article I, § 8, of the Constitution provides:
"The Congress shall have Power ... to Promote the Progress of Science and
useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive
Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
As we noted last Term: "[This] limited grant is a means by which an important
public purpose may be achieved. It is intended to motivate the creative activity
of authors and inventors by the provision of a special reward, and to allow
the public access to the products of their genius after the limited period of
exclusive control has expired." Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City
Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 429, 104 S.Ct. 774, 782, 78 L.Ed.2d 574 (1984).
"The monopoly created by copyright thus rewards the individual author in
order to benefit the public." Id., at 477, 104 S.Ct., at 807 (dissenting
opinion). This principle applies equally to works of fiction and nonfiction.
The book at issue here, for example, was two years in the making, and began
with a contract giving the author's copyright to the publishers in exchange
for their services in producing and marketing the work. In preparing the book,
Mr. Ford drafted essays and word portraits of public figures and participated
in hundreds of taped interviews that were later distilled to chronicle his personal
viewpoint. It is evident that the monopoly granted by copyright actively served
its intended purpose of inducing the creation of new material of potential historical
value.
Section 106 of the Copyright Act confers a bundle of exclusive rights to the
owner of the copyright. [FN1] Under the Copyright *547 Act, these rights--to
publish, copy, and distribute the author's work--vest in the author of an original
work from the time of its creation. § 106. In practice, the author commonly
sells his rights to publishers who offer royalties in exchange for their services
in producing and marketing the author's work. The copyright owner's rights,
however, are subject to certain statutory exceptions. §§ 107-118.
Among these is § 107 which codifies the traditional privilege of other
authors to make "fair use" of an earlier writer's work. [FN2] In addition,
**2224 no author may copyright facts or ideas. § 102. The copyright is
limited to those aspects of the work-- termed "expression"--that display
the stamp of the author's originality.
FN1. Section 106 provides in pertinent part:
"Subject to sections 107 through 118, the owner of copyright under this
title has the exclusive rights to do and authorize any of the following:
"(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies ... ;
"(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
"(3) to distribute copies ... of the copyrighted work to the public...."
FN2. Section 107 states:
"Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, the fair use of a copyrighted
work ... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including
multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement
of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular
case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--
"(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is
of
a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
"(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
"(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the
copyrighted work as a whole; and
"(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the
copyrighted work."
Creation of a nonfiction work, even a compilation of pure fact, entails originality.
See, e.g., Schroeder v. William Morrow & Co., 566 F.2d 3 (CA7 1977) (copyright
in gardening directory); cf. Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U.S.
53, 58, 4 S.Ct. 279, 281, 28 L.Ed. 349 (1884) (originator of a photograph may
claim copyright in his work). The copyright holders of "A Time to Heal"
complied with the relevant statutory notice and registration *548 procedures.
See §§ 106, 401, 408; App. to Pet. for Cert. C-20. Thus there is no
dispute that the unpublished manuscript of "A Time to Heal," as a
whole, was protected by § 106 from unauthorized reproduction. Nor do respondents
dispute that verbatim copying of excerpts of the manuscript's original form
of expression would constitute infringement unless excused as fair use. See
1 M. Nimmer, Copyright § 2.11[B], p. 2-159 (1984) (hereinafter Nimmer).
Yet copyright does not prevent subsequent users from copying from a prior author's
work those constituent elements that are not original--for example, quotations
borrowed under the rubric of fair use from other copyrighted works, facts, or
materials in the public domain--as long as such use does not unfairly appropriate
the author's original contributions. Ibid.; A. Latman, Fair Use of Copyrighted
Works (1958), reprinted as Study No. 14 in Copyright Law Revision Studies Nos.
14-16, prepared for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 86th Cong., 2d Sess.,
7 (1960) (hereinafter Latman). Perhaps the controversy between the lower courts
in this case over copyrightability is more aptly styled a dispute over whether
The Nation's appropriation of unoriginal and uncopyrightable elements encroached
on the originality embodied in the work as a whole. Especially in the realm
of factual narrative, the law is currently unsettled regarding the ways in which
uncopyrightable elements combine with the author's original contributions to
form protected expression. Compare Wainwright Securities Inc. v. Wall Street
Transcript Corp., 558 F.2d 91 (CA2 1977) (protection accorded author's analysis,
structuring of material and marshaling of facts), with Hoehling v. Universal
City Studios, Inc., 618 F.2d 972 (CA2 1980) (limiting protection to ordering
and choice of words). See, e.g., 1 Nimmer § 2.11[D], at 2-164--2- 165.
We need not reach these issues, however, as The Nation has admitted to lifting
verbatim quotes of the author's original language totaling between 300 and 400
words and constituting some 13% of The Nation article. In using generous *549
verbatim excerpts of Mr. Ford's unpublished manuscript to lend authenticity
to its account of the forthcoming memoirs, The Nation effectively arrogated
to itself the right of first publication, an important marketable subsidiary
right. For the reasons set forth below, we find that this use of the copyrighted
manuscript, even stripped to the verbatim quotes conceded by The Nation to be
copyrightable expression, was not a fair use within the meaning of the Copyright
Act.
III
A
Fair use was traditionally defined as "a privilege in others than the owner
of the copyright to use the copyrighted material in a reasonable manner without
his consent." H. Ball, Law of Copyright and Literary **2225 Property 260
(1944) (hereinafter Ball). The statutory formulation of the defense of fair
use in the Copyright Act reflects the intent of Congress to codify the common-
law doctrine. 3 Nimmer § 13.05. Section 107 requires a case-by-case determination
whether a particular use is fair, and the statute notes four nonexclusive factors
to be considered. This approach was "intended to restate the [pre-existing]
judicial doctrine of fair use, not to change, narrow, or enlarge it in any way."
H.R.Rep. No. 94-1476, p. 66 (1976) (hereinafter House Report), U.S.Code Cong.
& Admin.News 1976, pp. 5659, 5680.
"[T]he author's consent to a reasonable use of his copyrighted works ha[d]
always been implied by the courts as a necessary incident of the constitutional
policy of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts, since a prohibition
of such use would inhibit subsequent writers from attempting to improve upon
prior works and thus ... frustrate the very ends sought to be attained."
Ball 260. Professor Latman, in a study of the doctrine of fair use commissioned
by Congress for the revision effort, see Sony Corp. of America v. Universal
City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S., at 462-463, n. 9, 104 S.Ct., at 781, n. 9 (dissenting
opinion), summarized prior law as turning on the "importance *550 of the
material copied or performed from the point of view of the reasonable copyright
owner. In other words, would the reasonable copyright owner have consented to
the use?" Latman 15. [FN3]
FN3. Professor Nimmer notes: "[Perhaps] no more precise guide can be stated
than Joseph McDonald's clever paraphrase of the Golden Rule: 'Take not from
others to such an extent and in such a manner that you would be resentful if
they so took from you.' " 3 Nimmer § 13.05[A], at 13-66, quoting McDonald,
Non-infringing Uses, 9 Bull. Copyright Soc. 466, 467 (1962). This "equitable
rule of reason," Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.,
464 U.S., at 448, 104 S.Ct., at 792, "permits courts to avoid rigid application
of the copyright statute when, on occasion, it would stifle the very creativity
which that law is designed to
foster." Iowa State University Research Foundation, Inc. v. American Broadcasting
Cos., 621 F.2d 57, 60 (CA2 1980). See generally L. Seltzer, Exemptions and Fair
Use in Copyright 18-48 (1978).
As early as 1841, Justice Story gave judicial recognition to the doctrine in
a case that concerned the letters of another former President, George Washington.
"[A] reviewer may fairly cite largely from the original work, if his design
be really and truly to use the passages for the purposes of fair and reasonable
criticism. On the other hand, it is as clear, that if he thus cites the most
important parts of the work, with a view, not to criticise, but to supersede
the use of the original work, and substitute the review for it, such a use will
be deemed in law a piracy." Folsom v. Marsh, 9 F.Cas. 342, 344-345 (No.
4,901) (CC Mass.)
As Justice Story's hypothetical illustrates, the fair use doctrine has always
precluded a use that "supersede[s] the use of the original." Ibid.
Accord, S.Rep. No. 94-473, p. 65 (1975) (hereinafter Senate Report).
Perhaps because the fair use doctrine was predicated on the author's implied
consent to "reasonable and customary" use when he released his work
for public consumption, fair use traditionally was not recognized as a defense
to charges *551 of copying from an author's as yet unpublished works. [FN4]
Under common-law copyright, "the property of the author ... in his intellectual
creation [was] absolute until he voluntarily part[ed] with the same." **2226
American Tobacco Co. v. Werckmeister, 207 U.S. 284, 299, 28 S.Ct. 72, 77, 52
L.Ed. 208 (1907); 2 Nimmer § 8.23, at 8-273. This absolute rule, however,
was tempered in practice by the equitable nature of the fair use doctrine. In
a given case, factors such as implied consent through de facto publication on
performance or dissemination of a work may tip the balance of equities in favor
of prepublication use. See Copyright Law Revision--Part 2: Discussion and Comments
on Report of the Register of Copyrights on General Revision of the U.S. Copyright
Law, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 27 (H.R.Comm. Print 1963) (discussion suggesting
works disseminated to the public in a form not constituting a technical "publication"
should nevertheless be subject to fair use); 3 Nimmer § 13.05, at 13-62,
n. 2. But it has never been seriously disputed that "the fact that the
plaintiff's work is unpublished ... is a factor tending to negate the defense
of fair use." Ibid. Publication of an author's expression before he has
authorized its dissemination seriously infringes the author's right to decide
when and whether it will be made public, a factor not present in fair use of
published works. [FN5] *552 Respondents contend, however, that Congress, in
including first publication among the rights enumerated in § 106, which
are expressly subject to fair use under § 107, intended that fair use would
apply in pari materia to published and unpublished works. The Copyright Act
does not support this proposition.
FN4. See Latman 7; Strauss, Protection of Unpublished Works (1957), reprinted
as Study No. 29 in Copyright Law Revision Studies Nos. 29-31, prepared for the
Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 86th Cong., 2d Sess., 4, n. 32 (1961) (citing
cases); R. Shaw, Literary Property in the United States 67 (1950) ("[T]here
can be no 'fair use' of unpublished material"); Ball 260, n. 5 ("[T]he
doctrine of fair use does not apply to unpublished works"); A. Weil, American
Copyright Law § 276, p. 115 (1917) (the author of an unpublished work "has,
probably, the right to prevent even a 'fair use' of the work by others").
Cf., M. Flint, A User's Guide to Copyright ¶ 10.06 (1979) (United Kingdom)
("no fair dealing with unpublished works"); Beloff v. Pressdram Ltd.,
[1973] All E.R. 241, 263 (Ch. 1972) (same).
FN5. See, e.g., Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Pet. 591, 657, 8 L.Ed. 1055 (1834) (distinguishing
the author's common-law right to "obtain redress against anyone who ...
by improperly obtaining a copy [of his unpublished work] endeavors to realize
a profit by its publication" from rights in a published work, which are
prescribed by statute); Press Publishing Co. v. Monroe, 73 F. 196, 199 (CA2),
writ of error dism'd, 164 U.S. 105, 17
S.Ct. 40, 41 L.Ed. 367 (1896); Stanley v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc.,
35 Cal.2d 653, 660-661, 221 P.2d 73, 77-78 (1950) (en banc); Golding v. RKO
Radio Pictures, Inc., 193 P.2d 153, 162 (Cal.App.1948) ( "An unauthorized
appropriation of [an unpublished work] is not to be neutralized on the plea
that 'it is such a little one' "), aff'd, 35 Cal.2d 690, 221 P.2d 95 (1950);
Fendler v. Morosco, 253 N.Y. 281, 291, 171 N.E. 56, 59 ("Since plaintiff
had not published or produced her play, perhaps any use that others made of
it might be unfair"), rehearing denied, 254 N.Y. 563, 173 N.E. 867 (1930).
The Copyright Act represents the culmination of a major legislative reexamination
of copyright doctrine. See Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder, 469 U.S. 153, 159-160,
105 S.Ct. 638, at ----, 83 L.Ed.2d 556 (1985); Sony Corp. of America v. Universal
City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S., at 462-463, n. 9, 104 S.Ct., at 781, n. 9 (dissenting
opinion). Among its other innovations, it eliminated publication "as a
dividing line between common law and statutory protection," House Report,
at 129 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1976, p. 5745, extending statutory protection
to all works from the time of their creation. It also recognized for the first
time a distinct statutory right of first publication, which had previously been
an element of the common-law protections afforded unpublished works. The Report
of the House Committee on the Judiciary confirms that "Clause (3) of section
106, establishes the exclusive right of publications.... Under this provision
the copyright owner would have the right to control the first public distribution
of an authorized copy ... of his work." Id., at 62 U.S.Code Cong. &
Admin.News 1976, p. 5675.
[1] Though the right of first publication, like the other rights enumerated
in § 106, is expressly made subject to the fair use provision of §
107, fair use analysis must always be tailored to the individual case. Id.,
at 65; 3 Nimmer § 13.05[A]. The *553 nature of the interest at stake is
highly relevant to whether a given use is fair. From the beginning, those entrusted
with the task of revision recognized the "overbalancing reasons to preserve
the common law protection of undisseminated works until the author or his successor
chooses to disclose them." Copyright Law Revision, Report of the Register
of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law, 87th Cong.,
1st Sess., 41 (Comm. Print 1961). The right of first **2227 publication implicates
a threshold decision by the author whether and in what form to release his work.
First publication is inherently different from other § 106 rights in that
only one person can be the first publisher; as the contract with Time illustrates,
the commercial value of the right lies primarily in exclusivity. Because the
potential damage to the author from judicially enforced "sharing"
of the first publication right with unauthorized users of his manuscript is
substantial, the balance of equities in evaluating such a claim of fair use
inevitably shifts.
The Senate Report confirms that Congress intended the unpublished nature of
the work to figure prominently in fair use analysis. In discussing fair use
of photocopied materials in the classroom the Committee Report states:
"A key, though not necessarily determinative, factor in fair use is whether
or not the work is available to the potential user. If the work is 'out of print'
and unavailable for purchase through normal channels, the user may have more
justification for reproducing it.... The applicability of the fair use doctrine
to unpublished works is narrowly limited since, although the work is unavailable,
this is the result of a deliberate choice on the part of the copyright owner.
Under ordinary circumstances, the copyright owner's 'right of first publication'
would outweigh any needs of reproduction for classroom purposes." Senate
Report, at 64.
Although the Committee selected photocopying of classroom materials to illustrate
fair use, it emphasized that "the same *554 general standards of fair use
are applicable to all kinds of uses of copyrighted material." Id., at 65.
We find unconvincing respondents' contention that the absence of the quoted
passage from the House Report indicates an intent to abandon the traditional
distinction between fair use of published and unpublished works. It appears
instead that the fair use discussion of photocopying of classroom materials
was omitted from the final Report because educators and publishers in the interim
had negotiated a set of guidelines that rendered the discussion obsolete. House
Report, at 67. The House Report nevertheless incorporates the discussion by
reference, citing to the Senate Report and stating: "The Committee has
reviewed this discussion, and considers it still has value as an analysis of
various aspects of the [fair use] problem." Ibid.
Even if the legislative history were entirely silent, we would be bound to conclude
from Congress' characterization of § 107 as a "restatement" that
its effect was to preserve existing law concerning fair use of unpublished works
as of other types of protected works and not to "change, narrow, or enlarge
it." Id., at 66. We conclude that the unpublished nature of a work is "[a]
key, though not necessarily determinative, factor" tending to negate a
defense of fair use. Senate Report, at 64. See 3 Nimmer § 13.05, at 13-62,
n. 2; W. Patry, The Fair Use Privilege in Copyright Law 125 (1985) (hereinafter
Patry).
[2] We also find unpersuasive respondents' argument that fair use may be made
of a soon-to-be-published manuscript on the ground that the author has demonstrated
he has no interest in nonpublication. This argument assumes that the unpublished
nature of copyrighted material is only relevant to letters or other confidential
writings not intended for dissemination. It is true that common-law copyright
was often enlisted in the service of personal privacy. See Brandeis & Warren,
The Right to Privacy, 4 Harv.L.Rev. 193, 198-199 (1890). In its commercial guise,
however, an author's right to choose when he will publish is no less deserving
of protection. *555 The period encompassing the work's initiation, its preparation,
and its grooming for public dissemination is a crucial one for any literary
endeavor. The Copyright Act, which accords the copyright owner the "right
to control the first public distribution" of his work, House Report, at
62, echos the common law's concern that the author or copyright owner retain
control throughout this **2228 critical stage. See generally Comment, The Stage
of Publication as a "Fair Use" Factor: Harper & Row, Publishers
v. Nation Enterprises, 58 St. John's L.Rev. 597 (1984). The obvious benefit
to author and public alike of assuring authors the leisure to develop their
ideas free from fear of expropriation outweighs any short-term "news value"
to be gained from premature publication of the author's expression. See Goldstein,
Copyright and the First Amendment, 70 Colum.L.Rev. 983, 1004-1006 (1970) (The
absolute protection the common law accorded to soon-to-be published works "[was]
justified by [its] brevity and expedience"). The author's control of first
public distribution implicates not only his personal interest in creative control
but his property interest in exploitation of prepublication rights, which are
valuable in themselves and serve as a valuable adjunct to publicity and marketing.
See Belushi v. Woodward, 598 F.Supp. 36 (DC 1984) (successful marketing depends
on coordination of serialization and release to public); Marks, Subsidiary Rights
and Permissions, in What Happens in Book Publishing 230 (C. Grannis ed. 1967)
(exploitation of subsidiary rights is necessary to financial success of new
books). Under ordinary circumstances, the author's right to control the first
public appearance of his undisseminated expression will outweigh a claim of
fair use.
B
[3] Respondents, however, contend that First Amendment values require a different
rule under the circumstances of this case. The thrust of the decision below
is that "[t]he scope of [fair use] is undoubtedly wider when the information
*556 conveyed relates to matters of high public concern." Consumers Union
of the United States, Inc. v. General Signal Corp., 724 F.2d 1044, 1050 (CA2
1983) (construing 723 F.2d 195 (CA2 1983) (case below) as allowing advertiser
to quote Consumer Reports), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 823, 104 S.Ct. 2655, 81 L.Ed.2d
362 (1984). Respondents advance the substantial public import of the subject
matter of the Ford memoirs as grounds for excusing a use that would ordinarily
not pass muster as a fair use--the piracy of verbatim quotations for the purpose
of "scooping" the authorized first serialization. Respondents explain
their copying of Mr. Ford's expression as essential to reporting the news story
it claims the book itself represents. In respondents' view, not only the facts
contained in Mr. Ford's memoirs, but "the precise manner in which [he]
expressed himself [were] as newsworthy as what he had to say." Brief for
Respondents 38-39. Respondents argue that the public's interest in learning
this news as fast as possible outweighs the right of the author to control its
first publication.
The Second Circuit noted, correctly, that copyright's idea/expression dichotomy
"strike[s] a definitional balance between the First Amendment and the Copyright
Act by permitting free communication of facts while still protecting an author's
expression." 723 F.2d, at 203. No author may copyright his ideas or the
facts he narrates. 17 U.S.C. § 102(b). See, e.g., New York Times Co. v.
United States, 403 U.S. 713, 726, n. , 91 S.Ct. 2140, 2147, n. , 29 L.Ed.2d
822 (1971) (BRENNAN, J., concurring) (Copyright laws are not restrictions on
freedom of speech as copyright protects only form of expression and not the
ideas expressed); 1 Nimmer § 1.10[B][2]. As this Court long ago observed:
"[T]he news element--the information respecting current events contained
in the literary production--is not the creation of the writer, but is a report
of matters that ordinarily are publici juris; it is the history of the day."
International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215, 234, 39 S.Ct.
68, 71, 63 L.Ed. 211 (1918). But copyright assures those who write and publish
factual narratives such as "A Time to Heal" that *557 they may at
least enjoy the right to market the original expression contained therein as
just compensation for their investment. Cf. **2229 Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard
Broadcasting Co., 433 U.S. 562, 575, 97 S.Ct. 2849, 2857, 53 L.Ed.2d 965 (1977).
Respondents' theory, however, would expand fair use to effectively destroy any
expectation of copyright protection in the work of a public figure. Absent such
protection, there would be little incentive to create or profit in financing
such memoirs, and the public would be denied an important source of significant
historical information. The promise of copyright would be an empty one if it
could be avoided merely by dubbing the infringement a fair use "news report"
of the book. See Wainwright Securities Inc. v. Wall Street Transcript Corp.,
558 F.2d 91 (CA2 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1014, 98 S.Ct 730, 54 L.Ed.2d
759 (1978).
Nor do respondents assert any actual necessity for circumventing the copyright
scheme with respect to the types of works and users at issue here. [FN6] Where
an author and publisher have invested extensive resources in creating an original
work and are poised to release it to the public, no legitimate aim is served
by pre-empting the right of first publication. The fact that the words the author
has chosen to clothe his narrative may of themselves be "newsworthy"
is not an independent justification for unauthorized copying of the author's
expression prior to publication. To paraphrase another recent Second Circuit
decision:
FN6. It bears noting that Congress in the Copyright Act recognized a
public interest warranting specific exemptions in a number of areas not within
traditional fair use, see, e.g., 17 U.S.C. § 115 (compulsory license for
records); § 105 (no copyright in Government works). No such exemption limits
copyright in personal narratives written by public servants after they leave
Government service.
"[Respondent] possessed an unfettered right to use any factual information
revealed in [the memoirs] for the purpose of enlightening its audience, but
it can claim *558 no need to 'bodily appropriate' [Mr. Ford's] 'expression'
of that information by utilizing portions of the actual [manuscript]. The public
interest in the free flow of information is assured by the law's refusal to
recognize a valid copyright in facts. The fair use doctrine is not a license
for corporate theft, empowering a court to ignore a copyright whenever it determines
the underlying work contains material of possible public importance." Iowa
State University Research Foundation, Inc. v. American Broadcasting Cos., Inc.,
621 F.2d 57, 61 (CA2 1980) (citations omitted).
Accord, Roy Export Co. Establishment v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc.,
503 F.Supp. 1137 (SDNY 1980) ("newsworthiness" of material copied
does not justify copying), aff'd, 672 F.2d 1095 (CA2), cert. denied, 459 U.S.
826, 103 S.Ct. 60, 74 L.Ed.2d 63 (1982); Quinto v. Legal Times of Washington,
Inc., 506 F.Supp. 554 (DC 1981) (same).
In our haste to disseminate news, it should not be forgotten that the Framers
intended copyright itself to be the engine of free expression. By establishing
a marketable right to the use of one's expression, copyright supplies the economic
incentive to create and disseminate ideas. This Court stated in Mazer v. Stein,
347 U.S. 201, 219, 74 S.Ct. 460, 471, 98 L.Ed. 630 (1954):
"The economic philosophy behind the clause empowering Congress to grant
patents and copyrights is the conviction that encouragement of individual effort
by personal gain is the best way to advance public welfare through the talents
of authors and inventors in 'Science and useful Arts.' "
And again in Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken:
"The immediate effect of our copyright law is to secure a fair return for
an 'author's' creative labor. But the ultimate aim is, by this incentive, to
stimulate [the creation of useful works] for the general public good."
422 U.S., at 156, 95 S.Ct., at 2043.
*559 It is fundamentally at odds with the scheme of copyright to accord lesser
rights **2230 in those works that are of greatest importance to the public.
Such a notion ignores the major premise of copyright and injures author and
public alike. "[T]o propose that fair use be imposed whenever the 'social
value [of dissemination] ... outweighs any detriment to the artist,' would be
to propose depriving copyright owners of their right in the property precisely
when they encounter those users who could afford to pay for it." Gordon,
Fair Use as Market Failure: A Structural and Economic Analysis of the Betamax
Case and its Predecessors, 82 Colum.L.Rev. 1600, 1615 (1982). And as one commentator
has noted: "If every volume that was in the public interest could be pirated
away by a competing publisher, ... the public [soon] would have nothing worth
reading." Sobel, Copyright and the First Amendment: A Gathering Storm?,
19 ASCAP Copyright Law Symposium 43, 78 (1971). See generally Comment, Copyright
and the First Amendment; Where Lies the Public Interest?, 59 Tulane L.Rev. 135
(1984).
Moreover, freedom of thought and expression "includes both the right to
speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all." Wooley v.
Maynard, 430 U.S. 705, 714, 97 S.Ct. 1428, 1435, 51 L.Ed.2d 752 (1977) (BURGER,
C.J.). We do not suggest this right not to speak would sanction abuse of the
copyright owner's monopoly as an instrument to suppress facts. But in the words
of New York's Chief Judge Fuld:
"The essential thrust of the First Amendment is to prohibit improper restraints
on the voluntary public expression of ideas; it shields the man who wants to
speak or publish when others wish him to be quiet. There is necessarily, and
within suitably defined areas, a concomitant freedom not to speak publicly,
one which serves the same ultimate end as freedom of speech in its affirmative
aspect." Estate of Hemingway v. Random House, Inc., 23 N.Y.2d 341, 348,
296 N.Y.S.2d 771, 776, 244 N.E.2d 250, 255 (1968).
*560 Courts and commentators have recognized that copyright, and the right of
first publication in particular, serve this countervailing First Amendment value.
See Schnapper v. Foley, 215 U.S.App.D.C. 59, 667 F.2d 102 (1981), cert. denied,
455 U.S. 948, 102 S.Ct. 1448, 71 L.Ed.2d 661 (1982); 1 Nimmer § 1.10[B],
at 1-70, n. 24; Patry 140-142.
In view of the First Amendment protections already embodied in the Copyright
Act's distinction between copyrightable expression and uncopyrightable facts
and ideas, and the latitude for scholarship and comment traditionally afforded
by fair use, we see no warrant for expanding the doctrine of fair use to create
what amounts to a public figure exception to copyright. Whether verbatim copying
from a public figure's manuscript in a given case is or is not fair must be
judged according to the traditional equities of fair use.
IV
[4] [5] [6] Fair use is a mixed question of law and fact. Pacific & Southern
Co. v. Duncan, 744 F.2d 1490, 1495, n. 8 (CA11 1984). Where the district court
has found facts sufficient to evaluate each of the statutory factors, an appellate
court "need not remand for further factfinding ... [but] may conclude as
a matter of law that [the challenged use] do[es] not qualify as a fair use of
the copyrighted work." Id., at 1495. Thus whether The Nation article constitutes
fair use under § 107 must be reviewed in light of the principles discussed
above. The factors enumerated in the section are not meant to be exclusive:
"[S]ince the doctrine is an equitable rule of reason, no generally applicable
definition is possible, and each case raising the question must be decided on
its own facts." House Report, at 65, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1976,
p. 5678. The four factors identified by Congress as especially relevant in determining
whether the use was fair are: (1) the purpose and character of the use; (2)
the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the substantiality of the portion used
in relation to the copyrighted work as *561 a whole; (4) the effect on the potential
market **2231 for or value of the copyrighted work. We address each one separately.
[7] Purpose of the Use. The Second Circuit correctly identified news reporting
as the general purpose of The Nation's use. News reporting is one of the examples
enumerated in § 107 to "give some idea of the sort of activities the
courts might regard as fair use under the circumstances." Senate Report,
at 61. This listing was not intended to be exhaustive, see ibid.; § 101
(definition of "including" and "such as"), or to single
out any particular use as presumptively a "fair" use. The drafters
resisted pressures from special interest groups to create presumptive categories
of fair use, but structured the provision as an affirmative defense requiring
a case-by-case analysis. See H.R.Rep. No. 83, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 37 (1967);
Patry 477, n. 4. "[W]hether a use referred to in the first sentence of
section 107 is a fair use in a particular case will depend upon the application
of the determinative factors, including those mentioned in the second sentence."
Senate Report, at 62. The fact that an article arguably is "news"
and therefore a productive use is simply one factor in a fair use analysis.
We agree with the Second Circuit that the trial court erred in fixing on whether
the information contained in the memoirs was actually new to the public. As
Judge Meskill wisely noted, "[c]ourts should be chary of deciding what
is and what is not news." 723 F.2d, at 215 (dissenting). Cf. Gertz v. Robert
Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 345-346, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 3009- 3010, 41 L.Ed.2d 789
(1974). "The issue is not what constitutes 'news,' but whether a claim
of newsreporting is a valid fair use defense to an infringement of copyrightable
expression." Patry 119. The Nation has every right to seek to be the first
to publish information. But The Nation went beyond simply reporting uncopyrightable
information and actively sought to exploit the headline value of its infringement,
making a "news event" out of its unauthorized first publication of
a noted figure's copyrighted expression.
*562 [8] The fact that a publication was commercial as opposed to nonprofit
is a separate factor that tends to weigh against a finding of fair use. "[E]very
commercial use of copyrighted material is presumptively an unfair exploitation
of the monopoly privilege that belongs to the owner of the copyright."
Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S., at 451, 104
S.Ct., at 793. In arguing that the purpose of news reporting is not purely commercial,
The Nation misses the point entirely. The crux of the profit/nonprofit distinction
is not whether the sole motive of the use is monetary gain but whether the user
stands to profit from exploitation of the copyrighted material without paying
the customary price. See Roy Export Co. Establishment v. Columbia Broadcasting
System, Inc., 503 F.Supp., at 1144; 3 Nimmer § 13.05[A][1], at 13-71, n.
25.3.
In evaluating character and purpose we cannot ignore The Nation's stated purpose
of scooping the forthcoming hardcover and Time abstracts. [FN7] App. to Pet.
for Cert. C-27. The Nation's use had not merely the incidental effect but the
intended purpose of supplanting the copyright holder's commercially valuable
right of first publication. See Meredith Corp. v. Harper & Row, Publishers,
Inc., 378 F.Supp. 686, 690 (SDNY) (purpose of text was to compete with original),
aff'd, 500 F.2d 1221 (CA2 1974). Also relevant to the "character"
of the use is "the propriety of the defendant's **2232 conduct." 3
Nimmer § 13.05[A], at 13-72. "Fair use presupposes 'good faith' and
'fair dealing.' " Time Inc. v. Bernard Geis Associates, 293 F.Supp. 130,
146 (SDNY 1968), quoting *563 Schulman, Fair Use and the Revision of the Copyright
Act, 53 Iowa L.Rev. 832 (1968). The trial court found that The Nation knowingly
exploited a purloined manuscript. App. to Pet. for Cert. B-1, C-20--C-21, C-28--C-29.
Unlike the typical claim of fair use, The Nation cannot offer up even the fiction
of consent as justification. Like its competitor newsweekly, it was free to
bid for the right of abstracting excerpts from "A Time to Heal." Fair
use "distinguishes between 'a true scholar and a chiseler who infringes
a work for personal profit.' " Wainwright Securities Inc. v. Wall Street
Transcript Corp., 558 F.2d, at 94, quoting from Hearings on Bills for the General
Revision of the Copyright Law before the House Committee on the Judiciary, 89th
Cong., 1st Sess., ser. 8, pt. 3, p. 1706 (1966) (statement of John Schulman).
FN7. The dissent excuses The Nation's unconsented use of an unpublished manuscript
as "standard journalistic practice," taking judicial notice of New
York Times articles regarding the memoirs of John Erlichman, John Dean's "Blind
Ambition," and Bernstein and Woodward's "The Final Days" as proof
of such practice. Post, at 2246-2248, and n. 14. Amici curiae sought to bring
this alleged practice to the attention of the Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit, citing these same articles. The Court of Appeals, at Harper & Row's
motion, struck these exhibits for failure of proof at trial, Record Doc. No.
19; thus they are not a proper subject for this Court's judicial notice.
Nature of the Copyrighted Work. Second, the Act directs attention to the nature
of the copyrighted work. "A Time to Heal" may be characterized as
an unpublished historical narrative or autobiography. The law generally recognizes
a greater need to disseminate factual works than works of fiction or fantasy.
See Gorman, Fact or Fancy? The Implications for Copyright, 29 J. Copyright Soc.
560, 561 (1982).
"[E]ven within the field of fact works, there are gradations as to the
relative proportion of fact and fancy. One may move from sparsely embellished
maps and directories to elegantly written biography. The extent to which one
must permit expressive language to be copied, in order to assure dissemination
of the underlying facts, will thus vary from case to case." Id., at 563.
Some of the briefer quotes from the memoirs are arguably necessary adequately
to convey the facts; for example, Mr. Ford's characterization of the White House
tapes as the "smoking gun" is perhaps so integral to the idea expressed
as to be inseparable from it. Cf. 1 Nimmer § 1.10[C]. But The Nation did
not stop at isolated phrases and instead excerpted subjective descriptions and
portraits of public figures whose power lies in the author's individualized
expression. Such *564 use, focusing on the most expressive elements of the work,
exceeds that necessary to disseminate the facts.
[9] The fact that a work is unpublished is a critical element of its "nature."
3 Nimmer § 13.05[A]; Comment, 58 St. John's L.Rev., at 613. Our prior discussion
establishes that the scope of fair use is narrower with respect to unpublished
works. While even substantial quotations might qualify as fair use in a review
of a published work or a news account of a speech that had been delivered to
the public or disseminated to the press, see House Report, at 65, the author's
right to control the first public appearance of his expression weighs against
such use of the work before its release. The right of first publication encompasses
not only the choice whether to publish at all, but also the choices of when,
where, and in what form first to publish a work.
In the case of Mr. Ford's manuscript, the copyright holders' interest in confidentiality
is irrefutable; the copyright holders had entered into a contractual undertaking
to "keep the manuscript confidential" and required that all those
to whom the manuscript was shown also "sign an agreement to keep the manuscript
confidential." App. to Pet. for Cert. C-19--C-20. While the copyright holders'
contract with Time required Time to submit its proposed article seven days before
publication, The Nation's clandestine publication afforded no such opportunity
for creative or quality control. Id., at C- 18. It was hastily patched together
and contained "a number of inaccuracies." App. 300b-300c (testimony
of Victor Navasky). A use that so clearly infringes the copyright holder's interests
in confidentiality and creative control is difficult to characterize as "fair."
**2233 Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Used. Next, the Act directs
us to examine the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation
to the copyrighted work as a whole. In absolute terms, the words actually quoted
were an insubstantial portion of "A Time to Heal." The District Court,
however, found that "[T]he Nation took what was *565 essentially the heart
of the book." 557 F.Supp., at 1072. We believe the Court of Appeals erred
in overruling the District Judge's evaluation of the qualitative nature of the
taking. See, e.g., Roy Export Co. Establishment v. Columbia Broadcasting System,
Inc., 503 F.Supp., at 1145 (taking of 55 seconds out of 1 hour and 29-minute
film deemed qualitatively substantial). A Time editor described the chapters
on the pardon as "the most interesting and moving parts of the entire manuscript."
Reply Brief for Petitioners 16, n. 8. The portions actually quoted were selected
by Mr. Navasky as among the most powerful passages in those chapters. He testified
that he used verbatim excerpts because simply reciting the information could
not adequately convey the "absolute certainty with which [Ford] expressed
himself," App. 303; or show that "this comes from President Ford,"
id., at 305; or carry the "definitive quality" of the original, id.,
at 306. In short, he quoted these passages precisely because they qualitatively
embodied Ford's distinctive expression.
As the statutory language indicates, a taking may not be excused merely because
it is insubstantial with respect to the infringing work. As Judge Learned Hand
cogently remarked, "no plagiarist can excuse the wrong by showing how much
of his work he did not pirate." Sheldon v. Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corp.,
81 F.2d 49, 56 (CA2), cert. denied, 298 U.S. 669, 56 S.Ct. 835, 80 L.Ed. 1392
(1936). Conversely, the fact that a substantial portion of the infringing work
was copied verbatim is evidence of the qualitative value of the copied material,
both to the originator and to the plagiarist who seeks to profit from marketing
someone else's copyrighted expression.
Stripped to the verbatim quotes, [FN8] the direct takings from the unpublished
manuscript constitute at least 13% of the infringingarticle. *566 See Meeropol
v. Nizer, 560 F.2d 1061, 1071 (CA2 1977) (copyrighted letters constituted less
than 1% of infringing work but were prominently featured). The Nation article
is structured around the quoted excerpts which serve as its dramatic focal points.
See Appendix to this opinion, post, p. 2235. In view of the expressive value
of the excerpts and their key role in the infringing work, we cannot agree with
the Second Circuit that the "magazine took a meager, indeed an infinitesimal
amount of Ford's original language." 723 F.2d, at 209.
FN8. See Appendix to this opinion, post, p. 2235. The Court of Appeals found
that only "approximately 300 words" were copyrightable but did not
specify which words. The court's discussion, however, indicates it excluded
from consideration those portions of The Nation's piece that,
although copied verbatim from Ford's manuscript, were quotes attributed by Ford
to third persons and quotations from Government documents. At oral argument,
counsel for The Nation did not dispute that verbatim quotes and very close paraphrase
could constitute infringement. Tr. of Oral Arg. 24- 25. Thus the Appendix identifies
as potentially infringing only verbatim quotes or very close paraphrase and
excludes from consideration Government documents and words attributed to third
persons. The Appendix is not intended to endorse any particular rule of copyrightability
but is intended merely as an aid to facilitate our discussion.
[10] [11] Effect on the Market. Finally, the Act focuses on "the effect
of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."
This last factor is undoubtedly the single most important element of fair use.
[FN9] See 3 Nimmer § 13.**2234 05[A], at 13-76, and cases cited therein.
"Fair use, when properly applied, is limited to copying by others which
*567 does not materially impair the marketability of the work which is copied."
1 Nimmer § 1.10[D], at 1-87. The trial court found not merely a potential
but an actual effect on the market. Time's cancellation of its projected serialization
and its refusal to pay the $12,500 were the direct effect of the infringement.
The Court of Appeals rejected this factfinding as clearly erroneous, noting
that the record did not establish a causal relation between Time's nonperformance
and respondents' unauthorized publication of Mr. Ford's expression as opposed
to the facts taken from the memoirs. We disagree. Rarely will a case of copyright
infringement present such clear-cut evidence of actual damage. Petitioners assured
Time that there would be no other authorized publication of any portion of the
unpublished manuscript prior to April 23, 1979. Any publication of material
from chapters 1 and 3 would permit Time to renegotiate its final payment. Time
cited The Nation's article, which contained verbatim quotes from the unpublished
manuscript, as a reason for its nonperformance. With respect to apportionment
of profits flowing from a copyright infringement, this Court has held that an
infringer who commingles infringing and noninfringing elements "must abide
the consequences, unless he can make a separation of the profits so as to assure
to the injured party all that justly belongs to him." Sheldon v. Metro-Goldwyn
Pictures Corp., 309 U.S. 390, 406, 60 S.Ct. 681, 687, 84 L.Ed. 825 (1940). Cf.
17 U.S.C. § 504(b) (the infringer is required to prove elements of profits
attributable to other than the infringed work). Similarly, once a copyright
holder establishes with reasonable probability the existence of a causal connection
between the infringement and a loss of revenue, the burden properly shifts to
the infringer to show that this damage would have occurred had there been no
taking of copyrighted expression. See 3 Nimmer § 14.02, at 14-7--14-8.1.
Petitioners established a prima facie case of actual damage that respondents
failed to rebut. See *568 Stevens Linen Associates, Inc. v. Mastercraft Corp.,
656 F.2d 11, 15 (CA2 1981). The trial court properly awarded actual damages
and accounting of profits. See 17 U.S.C. § 504(b).
FN9. Economists who have addressed the issue believe the fair use exception
should come into play only in those situations in which the market fails or
the price the copyright holder would ask is near zero. See, e.g., T. Brennan,
Harper & Row v. The Nation, Copyrightability and Fair Use, Dept. of Justice
Economic Policy Office Discussion Paper 13-17 (1984); Gordon, Fair Use as Market
Failure: A Structural and Economic Analysis of the Betamax Case and its Predecessors,
82 Colum.L.Rev. 1600, 1615 (1982). As the facts here demonstrate, there is a
fully functioning market that encourages the creation and dissemination of memoirs
of public figures. In the economists' view, permitting "fair use"
to displace normal copyright channels disrupts the copyright market without
a commensurate public benefit.
[12] More important, to negate fair use one need only show that if the challenged
use "should become widespread, it would adversely affect the potential
market for the copyrighted work." Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City
Studios, Inc., 464 U.S., at 451, 104 S.Ct., at 793 (emphasis added); id., at
484, and n. 36, 104 S.Ct., at 810, and n. 36 (collecting cases) (dissenting
opinion). This inquiry must take account not only of harm to the original but
also of harm to the market for derivative works. See Iowa State University Research
Foundation, Inc. v. American Broadcasting Cos., 621 F.2d 57 (CA2 1980); Meeropol
v. Nizer, supra, at 1070; Roy Export v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc.,
503 F.Supp., at 1146. "If the defendant's work adversely affects the value
of any of the rights in the copyrighted work (in this case the adaptation [and
serialization] right) the use is not fair." 3 Nimmer § 13.05[B], at
13-77--13-78 (footnote omitted).
It is undisputed that the factual material in the balance of The Nation's article,
besides the verbatim quotes at issue here, was drawn exclusively from the chapters
on the pardon. The excerpts were employed as featured episodes in a story about
the Nixon pardon--precisely the use petitioners had licensed to Time. The borrowing
of these verbatim quotes from the unpublished manuscript lent The Nation's piece
a special air of authenticity--as Navasky expressed it, the reader would know
it was Ford speaking and not The Nation. **2235 App. 300c. Thus it directly
competed for a share of the market for prepublication excerpts. The Senate Report
states:
"With certain special exceptions ... a use that supplants any part of the
normal market for a copyrighted work would ordinarily be considered an infringement."
Senate Report, at 65.
*569 Placed in a broader perspective, a fair use doctrine that permits extensive
prepublication quotations from an unreleased manuscript without the copyright
owner's consent poses substantial potential for damage to the marketability
of first serialization rights in general. "Isolated instances of minor
infringements, when multiplied many times, become in the aggregate a major inroad
on copyright that must be prevented." Ibid.
V
The Court of Appeals erred in concluding that The Nation's use of the copyrighted
material was excused by the public's interest in the subject matter. It erred,
as well, in overlooking the unpublished nature of the work and the resulting
impact on the potential market for first serial rights of permitting unauthorized
prepublication excerpts under the rubric of fair use. Finally, in finding the
taking "infinitesimal," the Court of Appeals accorded too little weight
to the qualitative importance of the quoted passages of original expression.
In sum, the traditional doctrine of fair use, as embodied in the Copyright Act,
does not sanction the use made by The Nation of these copyrighted materials.
Any copyright infringer may claim to benefit the public by increasing public
access to the copyrighted work. See Pacific & Southern Co. v. Duncan, 744
F.2d, at 1499-1500. But Congress has not designed, and we see no warrant for
judicially imposing, a "compulsory license" permitting unfettered
access to the unpublished copyrighted expression of public figures.
The Nation conceded that its verbatim copying of some 300 words of direct quotation
from the Ford manuscript would constitute an infringement unless excused as
a fair use. Because we find that The Nation's use of these verbatim excerpts
from the unpublished manuscript was not a fair use, the judgment of the Court
of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
*570 APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT
The portions of The Nation article which were copied verbatim from "A Time
to Heal," excepting quotes from Government documents and quotes attributed
by Ford to third persons, are identified in boldface in the text. See ante,
at 2237, n. 7. The corresponding passages in the Ford manuscript are footnoted.
THE FORD MEMOIRS BEHIND THE NIXON PARDON
In his memoirs, A Time To Heal, which Harper & Row will publish in late
May or early June, former President Gerald R. Ford says that the idea of giving
a blanket pardon to Richard M. Nixon was raised before Nixon resigned from the
Presidency by Gen. Alexander Haig, who was then the White House chief of staff.
Ford also writes that, but for a misunderstanding, he might have selected Ronald
Reagan as his 1976 running mate, that Washington lawyer Edward Bennett Williams,
a Democrat, was his choice for head of the Central Intelligence Agency, that
Nixon was the one who first proposed Rockefeller for Vice President, and that
he regretted his "cowardice" [FN1] in allowing Rockefeller to remove
himself from Vice Presidential contention. Ford also describes his often prickly
relations with Henry Kissinger.
FN1. I was angry at myself for showing cowardice in not saying to the ultra-conservatives,
"It's going to be Ford and Rockefeller, whatever the consequences."
p. 496.
The Nation obtained the 655-page typescript before publication. Advance excerpts
**2236 from the book will appear in Time in mid-April and in The Reader's Digest
thereafter. Although the initial print order has not been decided, the figure
is tentatively set at 50,000; it could change, depending upon the public reaction
to the serialization.
Ford's account of the Nixon pardon contains significant new detail on the negotiations
and considerations that surrounded *571 it. According to Ford's version, the
subject was first broached to him by General Haig on August 1, 1974, a week
before Nixon resigned. General Haig revealed that the newly transcribed White
House tapes were the equivalent of the "smoking gun" [FN2] and that
Ford should prepare himself to become President.
FN2. [I]t contained the so-called smoking gun. p. 3.
Ford was deeply hurt by Haig's revelation: "Over the past several months
Nixon had repeatedly assured me that he was not involved in Watergate, that
the evidence would prove his innocence, that the matter would fade from view."
[FN3] Ford had believed him, but he let Haig explain the President's alternatives.
FN3. [O]ver the past several months Nixon had repeatedly assured me that he
was not involved in Watergate, that the evidence would prove his innocence,
that the matter would fade from view. p. 7.
He could "ride it out" [FN4] or he could resign, Haig said. He then
listed the different ways Nixon might resign and concluded by pointing out that
Nixon could agree to leave in return for an agreement that the new President,
Ford, would pardon him. [FN5] Although Ford said it would be improper for him
to make any recommendation, he basically agreed with Haig's assessment and adds,
"Because of his references to the pardon authority, I did ask Haig about
the extent of a President's pardon power." [FN6]
FN4. The first [option] was that he could try to "ride it out" by
letting impeachment take its natural course through the House and the Senate
trial, fighting against conviction all the way. p. 4.
FN5. Finally, Haig said that according to some on Nixon's White House staff, Nixon could agree to leave in return for an agreement that the new President--Gerald Ford--would pardon him. p. 5.
FN6. Because of his references to pardon authority, I did ask Haig about the extent of a President's pardon power. pp. 5-6.
"It's my understanding from a White House lawyer," Haig replied, "that
a President does have authority to grant a pardon even before criminal action
has been taken against an individual."
*572 But because Ford had neglected to tell Haig he thought the idea of a resignation
conditioned on a pardon was improper, his press aide, Bob Hartmann, suggested
that Haig might well have returned to the White House and told President Nixon
that he had mentioned the idea and Ford seemed comfortable with it. "Silence
implies assent."
Ford then consulted with White House special counsel James St. Clair, who had
no advice one way or the other on the matter more than pointing out that he
was not the lawyer who had given Haig the opinion on the pardon. Ford also discussed
the matter with Jack Marsh, who felt that the mention of a pardon in this context
was a "time bomb," and with Bryce Harlow, who had served six Presidents
and who agreed that the mere mention of a pardon "could cause a lot of
trouble." [FN7]
FN7. Only after I had finished did [Bryce Harlow] let me know in no uncertain
terms that he agreed with Bob and Jack, that the mere mention of the pardon
option could cause a lot of trouble in the days ahead. p. 18.
As a result of these various conversations, Vice President Ford called Haig
and read him a written statement: "I want you to understand that I have
no intention of recommending what the President should do about resigning or
not resigning and that nothing we talked about yesterday afternoon should be
given any consideration in whatever decision the President may wish to make."
**2237 Despite what Haig had told him about the "smoking gun" tapes,
Ford told a Jackson, Mich., luncheon audience later in the day that the President
was not guilty of an impeachable offense. "Had I said otherwise at that
moment," he writes, "the whole house of cards might have collapsed."
[FN8]
FN8. During the luncheon I repeated my assertion that the President
was not guilty of an impeachable offense. Had I said otherwise at that moment,
the whole house of cards might have collapsed. p. 21.
In justifying the pardon, Ford goes out of his way to assure the reader that
"compassion for Nixon as an individual *573 hhadn't prompted my decision
at all." [FN9] Rather, he did it because he had "to get the monkey
off my back one way or the other." [FN10]
FN9. But compassion for Nixon as an individual hadn't prompted my decision at
all. p. 266.
FN10. I had to get the monkey off my back one way or another. p. 236.
The precipitating factor in his decision was a series of secret meetings his
general counsel, Phil Buchen, held with Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski
in the Jefferson Hotel, where they were both staying at the time. Ford attributes
Jaworski with providing some "crucial" information [FN11]-- i.e.,
that Nixon was under investigation in ten separate areas, and that the court
process could "take years." [FN12] Ford cites a memorandum from Jaworski's
assistant, Henry S. Ruth Jr., as being especially persuasive. Ruth had written:
FN11. Jaworski gave Phil several crucial pieces of information. p. 246.
FN12. And if the verdict was Guilty, one had to assume that Nixon would appeal. That process would take years. p. 248.
"If you decide to recommend indictment I think it is fair and proper to
notify Jack Miller and the White House sufficiently in advance so that pardon
action could be taken before the indictment." He went on to say: "One
can make a strong argument for leniency and if President Ford is so inclined,
I think he ought to do it early rather than late."
Ford decided that court proceedings against Nixon might take six years, that
Nixon "would not spend time quietly in San Clemente," [FN13] and "it
would be virtually impossible for me to direct public attention on anything
else." [FN14]
FN13. The entire process would no doubt require years: a minimum of two, a maximum
of six. And Nixon would not spend time quietly in San Clemente. p. 238.
FN14. It would be virtually impossible for me to direct public attention on anything else. p. 239.
Buchen, Haig and Henry Kissinger agreed with him. Hartmann was not so sure.
*574 Buchen wanted to condition the pardon on Nixon agreeing to settle the question
of who would retain custody and control over the tapes and Presidential papers
that might be relevant to various Watergate proceedings, but Ford was reluctant
to do that.
At one point a plan was considered whereby the Presidential materials would
be kept in a vault at a Federal facility near San Clemente, but the vault would
require two keys to open it. One would be retained by the General Services Administration,
the other by Richard Nixon.
The White House did, however, want Nixon to make a full confession on the occasion
of his pardon or, at a minimum, express true contrition. Ford tells of the negotiation
with Jack Miller, Nixon's lawyer, over the wording of Nixon's statement. But
as Ford reports Miller's response. Nixon was not likely to yield. "His
few meetings with his client had shown him that the former President's ability
to discuss Watergate objectively was almost nonexistent." [FN15]
FN15. But [Miller] wasn't optimistic about getting such a statement. His few
meetings with his client had shown him that the former President's ability to
discuss Watergate objectively was almost nonexistent. p. 246.
**2238 The statement they really wanted was never forthcoming. As soon as Ford's
emissary arrived in San Clemente, he was confronted with an ultimatum by Ron
Zeigler, Nixon's former press secretary. "Lets get one thing straight immediately,"
Zeigler said. "President Nixon is not issuing any statement whatsoever
regarding Watergate, whether Jerry Ford pardons him or not." Zeigler proposed
a draft, which was turned down on the ground that "no statement would be
better than that." [FN16] They went through three more drafts before they
agreed on the statement Nixon finally made, which stopped far short of a full
confession.
FN16. When Zeigler asked Becker what he thought of it, Becker replied that no
statement would be better than that. p. 251.
When Ford aide Benton Becker tried to explain to Nixon that acceptance of a
pardon was an admission of guilt, he *575 felt the President wasn't really listening.
Instead, Nixon wanted to talk about the Washington Redskins. And when Becker
left, Nixon pressed on him some cuff links and a tiepin "out of my own
jewelry box."
Ultimately, Ford sums up the philosophy underlying his decision as one he picked
up as a student at Yale Law School many years before. "I learned that public
policy often took precedence over a rule of law. Although I respected the tenet
that no man should be above the law, public policy demanded that I put Nixon--and
Watergate--behind us as quickly as possible." [FN17]
FN17. Years before, at Yale Law School, I'd learned that public policy often
took precedence over a rule of law. Although I respected the tenet that no man
should be above the law, public policy demanded that I put Nixon--and Watergate--behind
us as quickly as possible. p. 256.
Later, when Ford learned that Nixon's phlebitis had acted up and his health
was seriously impaired, he debated whether to pay the ailing former President
a visit. "If I made the trip it would remind everybody of Watergate and
the pardon. If I didn't, people would say I lacked compassion." [FN18]
Ford went:
FN18. My staff debated whether or not I ought to visit Nixon at the Long Beach
Hospital, only half an hour away. If I made the trip, it would
remind everyone of Watergate and the pardon. If I didn't, people would say I
lacked compassion. I ended their debate as soon as I found out it had begun.
Of course I would go. p. 298.
He was stretched out flat on his back. There were tubes in his nose and mouth,
and wires led from his arms, chest and legs to machines with orange lights that
blinked on and off. His face was ashen, and I thought I had never seen anyone
closer to death. [FN19]
FN19. He was stretched out flat on his back. There were tubes in his nose and
mouth, and wires led from his arms, chest and legs to machines with orange lights
that blinked on and off. His face was ashen, and I thought I had never seen
anyone closer to death. p. 299.
The manuscript made available to The Nation includes many references to Henry
Kissinger and other personalities who played a major role during the Ford years.
*576 On Kissinger. Immediately after being informed by Nixon of his intention
to resign, Ford returned to the Executive Office Building and phoned Henry Kissinger
to let him know how he felt. "Henry," he said, "I need you. The
country needs you. I want you to stay. I'll do everything I can to work with
you ." [FN20]
FN20. "Henry," I said when he came on the line, "I need you.
The country needs you. I want you to stay. I'll do everything I can to work
with you." p. 46.
"Sir," Kissinger replied, "it is my job to get along with you
and not yours to get along with me."
"We'll get along," Ford said. "I know we'll get along."
Referring to Kissinger's joint jobs as Secretary of State and National Security
Adviser to the President, Ford said, "I don't want to make any change.
I think it's worked out well, so let's keep it that way." [FN21]
FN21. "We'll get along," I said. "I know we can get along."
We talked about the two hats he wore, as Secretary of State and National Security
Adviser to the President. "I don't want to make any change," I said.
"I think it's worked out well, so let's keep it that way." p. 46.
**2239 Later Ford did make the change and relieved Kissinger of his responsibilities
as National Security Adviser at the same time that he fired James Schlesinger
as Secretary of Defense. Shortly thereafter, he reports, Kissinger presented
him with a "draft" letter of resignation, which he said Ford could
call upon at will if he felt he needed it to quiet dissent from conservatives
who objected to Kissinger's role in the firing of Schlesinger.
On John Connally. When Ford was informed that Nixon wanted him to replace Agnew,
he told the President he had "no ambition to hold office after January
1977." [FN22] Nixon replied that that was good since his own choice for
his running mate in 1976 was John Connally. "He'd be excellent," observed
Nixon. Ford says he had "no problem with that."
FN22. I told him about my promise to Betty and said that I had no ambitions
to hold office after January 1977. p. 155.
On the Decision to Run Again. Ford was, he tells us, so sincere in his intention
not to run again that he thought he would announce it and enhance his credibility
in the country and the Congress, as well as keep the promise he had made to
his wife, Betty.
Kissinger talked him out of it. "You can't do that. It would be disastrous
from a foreign policy point of view. For the next two and a half years foreign
governments would know that they were dealing with a lame-duck President. All
our initiatives would be dead in the water, and I wouldn't be able to implement
your foreign policy. It would probably have the same consequences in dealing
with the Congress on domestic issues. You can't reassert the authority of the
Presidency if you leave yourself hanging out on a dead limb. You've got to be
an affirmative President."
*577 On David Kennerly, the White House photographer. Schlesinger was arguing
with Kissinger and Ford over the appropriate response to the seizure of the
Mayaguez. At issue was whether airstrikes against the Cambodians were desirable;
Schlesinger was opposed to bombings. Following a lull in the conversation, Ford
reports, up spoke the 30-year-old White House photographer, David Kennerly,
who had been taking pictures for the last hour.
"Has anyone considered," Kennerly asked, "that this might be
the act of a local Cambodian commander who has just taken it into his own hands
to stop any ship that comes by?" Nobody, apparently, had considered it,
but following several seconds of silence, Ford tells us, the view carried the
day. "Massive airstrikes would constitute overkill," Ford decided.
"It would be far better to have Navy jets from the Coral Sea make surgical
strikes against specific targets." [FN23]
FN23. Subjectively, I felt that what Kennerly had said made a lot of sense.
Massive airstrikes would constitute overkill. It would be far better to have
Navy jets from the Coral Sea make surgical strikes against specific targets
in the vicinity of Kompong Som. p. 416.
*578 On Nixon's Character. Nixon's flaw, according to Ford, was "pride."
"A terribly proud man," writes Ford, "he detested weakness in
other people. I'd often heard him speak disparagingly of those whom he felt
to be soft and expedient. (Curiously, he didn't feel that the press was weak.
Reporters, he sensed, were his adversaries. He knew they didn't like him, and
he responded with reciprocal disdain.)" [FN24]
FN24. In Nixon's case, that flaw was pride. A terribly proud man, he detested
weakness in other people. I'd often heard him speak disparagingly of those whom
he felt to be soft and expedient. (Curiously, he didn't feel that the press
was weak. Reporters, he sensed, were his adversaries. He knew they didn't like
him, and he responded with reciprocal disdain.) p. 53.
Nixon felt disdain for the Democratic leadership of the House, whom he also
regarded as weak. According to Ford, "His pride and personal contempt for
weakness had overcome his ability to tell the difference between right and **2240
wrong," [FN25] all of which leads Ford to wonder whether Nixon had known
in advance about Watergate.
FN25. His pride and personal contempt for weakness had overcome his ability
to tell the difference between right and wrong. p. 54.
On hearing Nixon's resignation speech, which Ford felt lacked an adequate plea
for forgiveness, he was persuaded that "Nixon was out of touch with reality."
[FN26]
FN26. The speech lasted fifteen minutes, and at the end I was convinced Nixon
was out of touch with reality. p. 57.
In February of last year, when The Washington Post obtained and printed advance
excerpts from H.R. Haldeman's memoir, The Ends of Power, on the eve of its publication
by Times Books, The New York Times called The Post's feat "a second-rate
burglary."
The Post disagreed, claiming that its coup represented "first-rate enterprise"
and arguing that it had burglarized nothing, that publication of the Haldeman
memoir came under the Fair Comment doctrine long recognized by the *579 courts,
and that "There is a fundamental journalistic principle here--a First Amendment
principle that was central to the Pentagon Papers case."
In the issue of The Nation dated May 5, 1979, our special Spring Books number,
we will discuss some of the ethical problems raised by the issue of disclosure.
Justice BRENNAN, with whom Justice WHITE and Justice MARSHALL join, dissenting.
The Court holds that The Nation's quotation of 300 words from the unpublished
200,000-word manuscript of President Gerald R. Ford infringed the copyright
in that manuscript, even though the quotations related to a historical event
of undoubted significance--the resignation and pardon of President Richard M.
Nixon. Although the Court pursues the laudable goal of protecting "the
economic incentive to create and disseminate ideas," ante, at 2230, this
zealous defense of the copyright owner's prerogative will, I fear, stifle the
broad dissemination of ideas and information copyright is intended to nurture.
Protection of the copyright owner's economic interest is achieved in this case
through an exceedingly narrow definition of the scope of fair use. The progress
of arts and sciences and the robust public debate essential to an enlightened
citizenry are ill served by this constricted reading of the fair use doctrine.
See 17 U.S.C. § 107. I therefore respectfully dissent.
I
A
This case presents two issues. First, did The Nation's use of material from
the Ford manuscript in forms other than direct quotation from that manuscript
infringe Harper & Row's copyright. Second, did the quotation of approximately
300 words from the manuscript infringe the copyright because this quotation
did not constitute "fair use" within the meaning *580 of § 107
of the Copyright Act. 17 U.S.C. § 107. The Court finds no need to resolve
the threshold copyrightability issue. The use of 300 words of quotation was,
the Court finds, beyond the scope of fair use and thus a copyright infringement.
[FN1] Because I disagree with the Court's fair use holding, it is necessary
for me to decide the threshold copyrightability question.
FN1. In bypassing the threshold issue, the Court certainly does not intimate
that The Nation's use of ideas and information other than the quoted material
would constitute a violation of the copyright laws. At one point in its opinion
the Court correctly states the governing principles with respect to the copyrightability
question. See ante, at 2229 ("No author may copyright his ideas or the
facts he narrates").
B
"The enactment of copyright legislation by Congress under the terms of
the Constitution is not based upon any natural right that the author has in
his writings ... but upon the ground that the welfare of the public will be
served and progress of science and useful arts will be promoted by **2241 securing
to authors for limited periods the exclusive rights to their writings."
H.R.Rep. No. 2222, 60th Cong., 2d Sess., 7 (1909). Congress thus seeks to define
the rights included in copyright so as to serve the public welfare and not necessarily
so as to maximize an author's control over his or her product. The challenge
of copyright is to strike the "difficult balance between the interests
of authors and inventors in the control and exploitation of their writings and
discoveries on the one hand, and society's competing interest in the free flow
of ideas, information, and commerce on the other hand." Sony Corp. of America
v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 429, 104 S.Ct. 774, 782, 78 L.Ed.2d
574 (1984).
The "originality" requirement now embodied in § 102 of the Copyright
Act is crucial to maintenance of the appropriate balance between these competing
interests. [FN2] Properly interpreted *581 in the light of the legislative history,
this section extends copyright protection to an author's literary form but permits
free use by others of the ideas and information the author communicates. See
S.Rep. No. 93-983, pp. 107-108 (1974) ("Copyright does not preclude others
from using the ideas or information revealed by the author's work. It pertains
to the literary ... form in which the author expressed intellectual concepts");
H.R.Rep. No. 94-1476, pp. 56-57 (1976) (same); New York Times Co. v. United
States, 403 U.S. 713, 726, n. *, 91 S.Ct. 2140, 2147, n. *, 29 L.Ed.2d 822 (1971)
(BRENNAN, J., concurring) ("[T]he copyright laws, of course, protect only
the form of expression and not the ideas expressed"). This limitation of
protection to literary form precludes any claim of copyright in facts, including
historical narration.
FN2. Section 102(b) states: "In no case does copyright protection for an
original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system,
method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form
in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work."
17 U.S.C. § 102(b). The doctrines of fair use, see 17 U.S.C. § 107,
and substantial similarity, see 3 M. Nimmer, Copyright § 13.05 (1984) (hereinafter
Nimmer), also function to accommodate these competing considerations. See generally
Gorman, Fact or Fancy? The Implications for Copyright, 29 J. Copyright Soc.
560 (1982).
"It is not to be supposed that the framers of the Constitution, when they
empowered Congress 'to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing
for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective
writings and discoveries' (Const., Art. I, § 8, par. 8), intended to confer
upon one who might happen to be the first to report a historic event the exclusive
right for any period to spread the knowledge of it." International News
Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215, 234, 39 S.Ct. 68, 70, 63 L.Ed. 211
(1918).
Accord, Rosemont Enterprises, Inc. v. Random House, Inc., 366 F.2d 303, 309
(CA2 1966), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 1009, 87 S.Ct. 714, 17 L.Ed.2d 546 (1967).
See 1 Nimmer § 2.11[A], at 2-158. [FN3]
FN3. By the same token, an author may not claim copyright in statements made
by others and reported verbatim in the author's work. See Suid v. Newsweek Magazine,
503 F.Supp. 146, 148 (DC 1980); Rokeach v. Avco Embassy Pictures Corp., 197
USPQ 155, 161 (SDNY 1978).
*582 The "promotion of science and the useful arts" requires this
limit on the scope of an author's control. Were an author able to prevent subsequent
authors from using concepts, ideas, or facts contained in his or her work, the
creative process would wither and scholars would be forced into unproductive
replication of the research of their predecessors. See Hoehling v. Universal
City Studios, Inc., 618 F.2d 972, 979 (CA2 1980). This limitation on copyright
also ensures consonance with our most important First Amendment values. Cf.
Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Co., 433 U.S. 562, 577, n. 13, 97 S.Ct.
2849, 2858 n. 13, 53 L.Ed.2d 965 (1977). Our "profound national commitment
to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust,
and wide-open," **2242 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270,
84 S.Ct. 710, 721, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964), leaves no room for a statutory monopoly
over information and ideas. "The arena of public debate would be quiet,
indeed, if a politician could copyright his speeches or a philosopher his treatises
and thus obtain a monopoly on the ideas they contained." Lee v. Runge,
404 U.S. 887, 893, 92 S.Ct. 197, 200, 30 L.Ed.2d 169 (1971) (Douglas, J., dissenting
from denial of certiorari). A broad dissemination of principles, ideas, and
factual information is crucial to the robust public debate and informed citizenry
that are "the essence of self- government." Garrison v. Louisiana,
379 U.S. 64, 74-75, 85 S.Ct. 209, 215- 216, 13 L.Ed.2d 125 (1964). And every
citizen must be permitted freely to marshal ideas and facts in the advocacy
of particular political choices. [FN4]
FN4. It would be perverse to prohibit government from limiting the
financial resources upon which a political speaker may draw, see FEC v. National
Conservative Political Action Committee, 470 U.S. 480, 105 S.Ct. 1459, 84 L.Ed.2d
455 (1985), but to permit government to limit the intellectual resources upon
which that speaker may draw.
It follows that infringement of copyright must be based on a taking of literary
form, as opposed to the ideas or information contained in a copyrighted work.
Deciding whether an infringing appropriation of literary form has occurred is
difficult for at least two reasons. First, the distinction between *583 literary
form and information or ideas is often elusive in practice. Second, infringement
must be based on a substantial appropriation of literary form. This determination
is equally challenging. Not surprisingly, the test for infringement has defied
precise formulation. [FN5] In general, though, the inquiry proceeds along two
axes: how closely has the second author tracked the first author's particular
language and structure of presentation; and how much of the first author's language
and structure has the second author appropriated. [FN6]
FN5. The protection of literary form must proscribe more than merely word-for-word
appropriation of substantial portions of an author's work.
Otherwise a plagiarist could avoid infringement by immaterial variations. Nichols
v. Universal Pictures Corp., 45 F.2d 119, 121 (CA2 1930). The step beyond the
narrow and clear prohibition of wholesale copying is, however, a venture onto
somewhat uncertain terrain. Compare Hoehling v. Universal City Studios, Inc.,
618 F.2d 972, 974 (CA2 1980), with Wainwright Securities Inc. v. Wall Street
Transcript Corp., 558 F.2d 91 (CA2 1977). See also 1 Nimmer § 1.10B, at
1-73--1-74 ("It is the particular selection and arrangement of ideas, as
well as a given specificity in the form of their expression, which warrants
protection"); Chafee, Reflections on the Law of Copyright: I, 45 Colum.L.Rev.
503, 513 (1945) ("[T]he line ... lie[s] somewhere between the author's
idea and the precise form in which he wrote it down.... [T]he protection covers
the 'pattern' of the work"); Gorman, supra, at 593 ("too literal and
substantial copying and paraphrasing of ... language").
FN6. The inquiry into the substantiality of appropriation has a quantitative and a qualitative aspect.
In the present case the infringement analysis must be applied to a historical
biography in which the author has chronicled the events of his White House tenure
and commented on those events from his unique perspective. Apart from the quotations,
virtually all of the material in The Nation's article indirectly recounted Mr.
Ford's factual narrative of the Nixon resignation and pardon, his latter-day
reflections on some events of his Presidency, and his perceptions of the personalities
at the center of those events. See ante, at 2235 - 2240. No copyright can be
claimed in this information qua information. Infringement would thus have to
be based *584 on too close and substantial a tracking of Mr. Ford's expression
of this information. [FN7]
FN7. Neither the District Court nor the dissent in the Court of Appeals approached
the question in this way. Despite recognizing that this material was not "per
se copyrightable," the District Court held that the "totality of these
facts and memoranda collected together with Mr. Ford's reflections ... is protected
by the copyright laws." 557 F.Supp. 1067, 1072-1073 (SDNY 1983). The dissent
in the Court of Appeals signaled approval of this approach. 723 F.2d 195, 213-214
(CA2 1983) (Meskill, J., dissenting). Such an approach must be rejected. Copyright
protection cannot be extended to factual information whenever that information
is interwoven with protected expression (purportedly in this
case Mr. Ford's reflections) into an expressive "totality." Most works
of history or biography blend factual narrative and reflective or speculative
commentary in this way. Precluding subsequent use of facts so presented cannot
be squared with the specific legislative intent, expressed in both House and
Senate Reports, that "[c]opyright does not preclude others from using the
... information revealed by the author's work." See S.Rep. No. 93-983,
pp. 107-108 (1974); H.R.Rep. No. 94-1476, pp. 56-57 (1976). The core purposes
of copyright would be thwarted and serious First Amendment concerns would arise.
An author could obtain a monopoly on narration of historical events simply by
being the first to discuss them in a reflective or analytical manner.
**2243 The Language. Much of the information The Nation conveyed was not in
the form of paraphrase at all, but took the form of synopsis of lengthy discussions
in the Ford manuscript. [FN8] In the course of this summary presentation, The
*585 Nation did use occasional sentences that closely resembled language in
the original Ford manuscript. [FN9] But these linguistic similarities are insufficient
to constitute an infringement for three reasons. First, some leeway must be
given to subsequent authors seeking to convey facts because those "wishing
to express the ideas contained in a factual work *586 often can choose from
only a narrow range of expression." Landsberg v. Scrabble Crossword Game
Players, Inc., 736 F.2d 485, 488 (CA9 1984). Second, much of what The Nation
paraphrased was material in which Harper & Row could claim no copyright.
[FN10] Third, The Nation paraphrased **2244 nothing approximating the totality
of a single paragraph, much less a chapter or the work as a whole. At most The
Nation paraphrased disparate isolated sentences from the original. A finding
of infringement based on paraphrase generally requires far more close and substantial
a tracking of the original language than occurred in this case. See, e.g., Wainwright
Securities Inc. v. Wall Street Transcript Corp., 558 F.2d 91 (CA2 1977).
FN8. For example, the Ford manuscript expends several hundred words discussing
relations between Mr. Ford and Ronald Reagan in the weeks before the Republican
Convention of 1976:
"About a month before the convention, my aides had met with Reagan's representatives
to discuss the need for party unity. And they had reached an agreement. At the
end of the Presidential balloting, the winner would go to the loser's hotel
suite and congratulate his opponent for waging a fine campaign. Together, they
would appear at a press conference and urge
all Republicans to put aside their differences and rally behind the ticket.
That was the only way we could leave Kansas City with a hope of victory. When
it appeared I was going to win, Sears contacted Cheney and refined the scenario.
He insisted on two conditions. The first was that I had to see Reagan alone;
there could be no aides from either camp in the room. Secondly, under no circumstances
should I offer him the nomination to be Vice President. Reagan had said all
along that he wasn't interested in the job. He had meant what he said. If I
tried to talk him out of it, he would have to turn me down, and that would be
embarrassing because it would appear that he was refusing to help the GOP. When
Cheney relayed those conditions to me, I agreed to go along with them. I would
need Reagan's assistance in the fall campaign. It would be stupid to anger him
or his followers at this moment.
"Later I was told that just before my arrival at the Californian's hotel,
one of his closest advisors, businessman Justin Dart, had urged him to say yes
if I asked him to be my running mate, Regardless of anything he'd said before,
Dart had insisted, it was his patriotic duty to accept the number two post.
Finally, according to Dart, Reagan had agreed. But at the time, no one mentioned
this new development to me. Had I been aware of the Dart-Reagan conversation,
would I have chosen him? I can't say for
sure--I thought his challenge had been divisive, and that it would probably
hurt the party in the fall campaign; additionally, I resented some of the things
that he'd been saying about me and my Administration's policies--but I certainly
would have considered him." App. 628-629.
The Nation encapsulated this discussion in the following sentence: "Ford
also writes that, but for a misunderstanding, he might have selected Ronald
Reagan as his 1976 running mate." Id., at 627. In most other instances,
a single sentence or brief paragraph in The Nation's article similarly conveys
the gist of a discussion in the Ford manuscript that runs into the hundreds
of words. See generally Addendum B to Defendant's Post- Trial Memorandum, id.,
at 627-704.
FN9. For example, at one point The Nation's article reads: "Ford told
a Jackson, Mich., luncheon audience later in the day that the President was
not guilty of an impeachable offense." Ante, at 2236. The portion of the
Ford manuscript discussed stated: "Representative Thad Cochran ... escorted
me to a luncheon at the Jackson Hilton Hotel. During the luncheon I repeated
my assertion that the President was not guilty of an impeachable offense."
App. 649. In several other places the language in The Nation's article parallels
Mr. Ford's original expression to a
similar degree. Compare ante, at 2235 - 2240, with App. 627-704.
FN10. Often the paraphrasing was of statements others had made to Mr. Ford. E.g., ante, at 2235 ("He could 'ride it out' or he could resign, Haig said"). See generally ante, at 2235 - 2240. No copyright can be asserted in the verbatim representation of such statements of others. 17 U.S.C. § 102. See Suid v. Newsweek Magazine, 503 F.Supp., at 148; Rokeach v. Avco Embassy Pictures Corp., 197 USPQ, at 161. Other paraphrased material came from Government documents in which no copyright interest can be claimed. For example, the article quotes from a memorandum prepared by Henry S. Ruth, Jr., in his official capacity as assistant to Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski. See ante, at 2236. This document is a work of the United States Government. See 17 U.S.C. § 105.
The Structure of Presentation. The article does not mimic Mr. Ford's structure.
The information The Nation presents is drawn from scattered sections of the
Ford work and does not appear in the sequence in which Mr. Ford presented it.
[FN11] Some of The Nation's discussion of the pardon does roughly track the
order in which the Ford manuscript presents information about the pardon. With
respect to this similarity, however, Mr. Ford has done no more than present
the facts *587 chronologically and cannot claim infringement when a subsequent
author similarly presents the facts of history in a chronological manner. Also,
it is difficult to suggest that a 2,000-word article could bodily appropriate
the structure of a 200,000-word book. Most of what Mr. Ford created, and most
of the history he recounted, were simply not represented in The Nation's article.
[FN12]
FN11. According to an exhibit Harper & Row introduced at trial the pages
in the Ford manuscript that correspond to consecutive sections of the article
are as follows: 607-608, 401, 44, 496, 1, 2-3, 4, 8, 7, 4-5, 5, 5- 6, 8, 14,
15, 16, 16, 18, 19, 21, 266, 236, 246, 248, 249, 238-239, 239, 243, 245, 246,
250, 250-251, 251, 252, 253, 254, 256, 298, 299, 46, 494, 537, 155-156, 216,
415, 416, 416, 53-54, 57. See App. to Pet. for Cert. E-1 to E-41.
FN12. In one sense The Nation "copied" Mr. Ford's selection of facts
because it reported on only those facts Mr. Ford chose to select for presentation.
But this tracking of a historian's selection of facts generally should not supply
the basis for a finding of infringement. See
Myers v. Mail & Express Co., 36 Copyright Off.Bull. 478 (SDNY 1919) (L.
Hand, J.). To hold otherwise would be to require a second author to duplicate
the research of the first author so as to avoid reliance on the first author's
judgment as to what facts are particularly pertinent. " 'It is just such
wasted effort that the proscription against the copyright of ideas and facts
... are designed to prevent.' " Miller v. Universal City Studios, Inc.,
650 F.2d 1365, 1371 (CA5 1981), quoting Rosemont Enterprises, Inc. v. Random
House, Inc., 366 F.2d 303, 310 (CA2 1966). See Gorman, 29 J. Copyright Soc.,
at 594-595.
When The Nation was not quoting Mr. Ford, therefore, its efforts to convey the
historical information in the Ford manuscript did not so closely and substantially
track Mr. Ford's language and structure as to constitute an appropriation of
literary form.
II
The Nation is thus liable in copyright only if the quotation of 300 words infringed
any of Harper & Row's exclusive rights under § 106 of the Act. Section
106 explicitly makes the grant of exclusive rights "[s]ubject to section
107 through 118." 17 U.S.C. § 106. Section 107 states: "Notwithstanding
the provisions of section 106, the fair use of a copyrighted work ... for purposes
such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies
for classroom use), scholarship or research, is not an infringement of copyright."
The question here is whether The Nation's *588 quotation was a noninfringing
fair use within the meaning of § 107.
Congress "eschewed a rigid, bright-line approach to fair use." Sony
Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S., at 449, n. 31, 104
S.Ct., at 792, n. 31. A court is to apply an "equitable rule of reason"
analysis, id., at 448, 104 S.Ct., at 792 guided by four statutorily prescribed
factors:
"(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is
of a **2245 commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
"(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
"(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the
copyrighted work as a whole; and
"(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the
copyrighted work." 17 U.S.C. § 107.
These factors are not necessarily the exclusive determinants of the fair use
inquiry and do not mechanistically resolve fair use issues; "no generally
applicable definition is possible, and each case raising the question must be
decided on its own facts." H.R.Rep. No. 94-1476, at 65. See also id., at
66 ("[T]he endless variety of situations and combinations of circumstances
that can arise in particular cases precludes the formulation of exact rules
in the statute"); S.Rep. No. 94-473, p. 62 (1975). The statutory factors
do, however, provide substantial guidance to courts undertaking the proper fact-
specific inquiry.
With respect to a work of history, particularly the memoirs of a public official,
the statutorily prescribed analysis cannot properly be conducted without constant
attention to copyright's crucial distinction between protected literary form
and unprotected information or ideas. The question must always be: Was the subsequent
author's use of literary form a fair use within the meaning of § 107, in
light of the purpose for the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount
of literary form used, and the effect of this use of literary form on the value
of or market for the original?
*589 Limiting the inquiry to the propriety of a subsequent author's use of the
copyright owner's literary form is not easy in the case of a work of history.
Protection against only substantial appropriation of literary form does not
ensure historians a return commensurate with the full value of their labors.
The literary form contained in works like "A Time to Heal" reflects
only a part of the labor that goes into the book. It is the labor of collecting,
sifting, organizing, and reflecting that predominates in the creation of works
of history such as this one. The value this labor produces lies primarily in
the information and ideas revealed, and not in the particular collocation of
words through which the information and ideas are expressed. Copyright thus
does not protect that which is often of most value in a work of history, and
courts must resist the tendency to reject the fair use defense on the basis
of their feeling that an author of history has been deprived of the full value
of his or her labor. A subsequent author's taking of information and ideas is
in no sense piratical because copyright law simply does not create any property
interest in information and ideas.
The urge to compensate for subsequent use of information and ideas is perhaps
understandable. An inequity seems to lurk in the idea that much of the fruit
of the historian's labor may be used without compensation. This, however, is
not some unforeseen byproduct of a statutory scheme intended primarily to ensure
a return for works of the imagination. Congress made the affirmative choice
that the copyright laws should apply in this way: "Copyright does not preclude
others from using the ideas or information revealed by the author's work. It
pertains to the literary ... form in which the author expressed intellectual
concepts." H.R.Rep. No. 94-1476, at 56-57. This distinction is at the essence
of copyright. The copyright laws serve as the "engine of free expression,"
ante, at 2230, only when the statutory monopoly does not choke off multifarious
indirect uses and consequent broad dissemination of information and ideas. To
ensure the progress of arts and sciences and the integrity *590 of First Amendment
values, ideas and information must not be freighted with claims of proprietary
right. [FN13]
FN13. This congressional limitation on the scope of copyright does not threaten
the production of history. That this limitation results in significant diminution
of economic incentives is far from apparent. In any event noneconomic incentives
motivate much historical research and writing. For example, former public officials
often have great incentive to "tell their side of the story." And
much history is the product of academic scholarship. Perhaps most importantly,
the urge to preserve the past is as old as humankind.
**2246 In my judgment, the Court's fair use analysis has fallen to the temptation
to find copyright violation based on a minimal use of literary form in order
to provide compensation for the appropriation of information from a work of
history. The failure to distinguish between information and literary form permeates
every aspect of the Court's fair use analysis and leads the Court to the wrong
result in this case. Application of the statutorily prescribed analysis with
attention to the distinction between information and literary form leads to
a straightforward finding of fair use within the meaning of § 107.
The Purpose of the Use. The Nation's purpose in quoting 300 words of the Ford
manuscript was, as the Court acknowledges, news reporting. See ante, at 2231.
The Ford work contained information about important events of recent history.
Two principals, Mr. Ford and General Alexander Haig, were at the time of The
Nation's publication in 1979 widely thought to be candidates for the Presidency.
That The Nation objectively reported the information in the Ford manuscript
without independent commentary in no way diminishes the conclusion that it was
reporting news. A typical newsstory differs from an editorial precisely in that
it presents newsworthy information in a straightforward and unelaborated manner.
Nor does the source of the information render The Nation's article any less
a news report. Often books and manuscripts, solicited and unsolicited, are *591
the subject matter of news reports. E.g., New York Times Co. v. United States,
403 U.S. 713, 91 S.Ct. 2140, 29 L.Ed.2d 822 (1971). Frequently the manuscripts
are unpublished at the time of the news report. [FN14]
FN14. E.g., N.Y. Times, Aug. 2, 1984, p. C20, col. 5 (article about revelations
in forthcoming biography of Cardinal Spellman); N.Y. Times, Dec. 10, 1981, p.
A18, col. 1 (article about revelations in forthcoming book by John Erlichman);
N.Y. Times, Sept. 29, 1976, p. 1, col. 2 (article about revelations in forthcoming
autobiography of President Nixon); N.Y. Times, Mar. 27, 1976, p. 9, col. 1 (article
about revelations concerning President Nixon's resignation in forthcoming book
The Final Days); N.Y. Times, Sept. 23, 1976, p. 36, col. 1 (article about revelations
concerning President Ford in forthcoming book Blind Ambition by John Dean).
Section 107 lists news reporting as a prime example of fair use of another's
expression. Like criticism and all other purposes Congress explicitly approved
in § 107, news reporting informs the public; the language of § 107
makes clear that Congress saw the spread of knowledge and information as the
strongest justification for a properly limited appropriation of expression.
The Court of Appeals was therefore correct to conclude that the purpose of The
Nation's use--dissemination of the information contained in the quotations of
Mr. Ford's work--furthered the public interest. 723 F.2d 195, 207-208 (CA2 1983).
In light of the explicit congressional endorsement in § 107, the purpose
for which Ford's literary form was borrowed strongly favors a finding of fair
use.
The Court concedes the validity of the news reporting purpose [FN15] but then
quickly offsets it against three purportedly countervailing considerations.
First, the Court asserts that because The Nation publishes for profit, its publication
of *592 the Ford quotes is a presumptively unfair commercial use. Second, the
Court claims that The Nation's stated desire to create a "news **2247 event"
signaled an illegitimate purpose of supplanting the copyright owner's right
of first publication. Ante, at 2231. Third, The Nation acted in bad faith, the
Court claims, because its editor "knowingly exploited a purloined manuscript."
Ibid.
FN15. The Court properly rejects the argument that this is not legitimate news.
Courts have no business making such evaluations of journalistic quality. See
ante, at 2231. The Court also properly rejects the argument that this use is
nonproductive. See ante, at 2231. News reporting, which encompasses journalistic
judgment with respect to selection, organization, and presentation of facts
and ideas, is certainly a productive use. See Sony Corp. of America v. Universal
City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S., at 478-479, 104 S.Ct., at 807-808 (BLACKMUN,
J., dissenting).
The Court's reliance on the commercial nature of The Nation's use as "a
separate factor that tends to weigh against a finding of fair use," ante,
at 2231, is inappropriate in the present context. Many uses § 107 lists
as paradigmatic examples of fair use, including criticism, comment, and news
reporting, are generally conducted for profit in this country, a fact of which
Congress was obviously aware when it enacted § 107. To negate any argument
favoring fair use based on news reporting or criticism because that reporting
or criticism was published for profit is to render meaningless the congressional
imprimatur placed on such uses. [FN16]
FN16. To support this claim the Court refers to some language in Sony Corp.
of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., supra, to the effect that "every
commercial use of copyrighted material is presumptively an unfair exploitation."
Id., at 451, 104 S.Ct., at 793. See ante, at 2231. Properly understood, this
language does not support the Court's position in this case. The Court in Sony
Corp. dealt with a use--video recording of copyrighted television programs for
personal use--about which Congress had expressed no policy judgment. When a
court evaluates uses
that Congress has not specifically addressed, the presumption articulated in
Sony Corp. is appropriate to effectuate the congressional instruction to consider
"whether such use is of a commercial nature." 17 U.S.C. § 107(1).
Also, the Court made that statement in the course of evaluating a use that appropriated
the entirety of the copyrighted work in a form identical to that of the original;
the presumption articulated may well have been intended to apply to takings
under these circumstances. But, in light of the specific language of §
107, this presumption is not appropriately employed to