Law Commons^™

Folsom V. Marsh And Its Legacy, L. Ray Patterson

Scholarly Works

The fair use doctrine has become so important in American copyright law that it is somewhat surprising to learn that the case credited with creating it, Folsom v. Marsh, was so poorly reasoned that it may be entitled to first place in the category of bad copyright decisions. The case was a bill in equity for copyright piracy, the style of which comes from plaintiff, Folsom, Wells and Thurston, printers and publishers, and defendants, Marsh, Capen and Lyon, booksellers.

If one of the characteristics of a bad legal decision is that it gives rise to a myth as to what …