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Literary And Artistic Property -- Common-Law Copyright-- Filing Of Architectural Plans In A Public Office As Publication, Judd L. Bacon S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff home designer prepared plans for a client and filed a copy in a county office as required by ordinance in order to obtain a building permit. Defendant copied and used these plans without plaintiff's consent. In an action under a state statute codifying the common-law right of designers to the exclusive ownership of their unpublished designs, the lower court held for defendant, finding plaintiff's copyright to have been destroyed by publication. On appeal, held, reversed. The filing of architectural plans in a public office in order to secure a building permit does not constitute a publication of them …

Sarony V. Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co., Henry W. Rogers

Articles

Commenting in the Federal Reporter on this Opinion, Professor Rogers considers at length this case bearing on definitions of copyright and artistic properties. "This was an action at law for the violation of the plaintiff's copyright of a photograph of Oscar Wilde, which the defendant had copied by the process known as chromo-lithography.... A jury was waived, and the case was argued upon questions of law only, which appear in the opinion."

"The contention of the defendant, briefly stated, is this: That there was no constitutional warrant for this act; that a photographer is not an author, and a photograph …