Leibowitz v. Columbia Graphophone Co.

LEARNED HAND, District Judge.

The subject of the copyright claimed is a musical composition. The plaintiff is now a citizen of the United States, but when he composed the music and took out the copyright was a Rumanian subject domiciled in New York. The copyright was taken out under section 11 of the act (Comp. St. § 9533), for a work “of which copies are not reproduced for sale,” and it has never been “published” in that sense. Therefore the plaintiff deposited only one copy with the register. Rumania has given no reciprocal rights to American authors.

The first point raised is that, as the…