| Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises | ||||||
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| Argued November 6, 1984 Decided May 20, 1985 |
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| Holding | ||||||
| The Court determined that fair use is not a defense to the appropriation of work by a famous political figure simply because of the public interest in learning of that political figure's account of an historic event. | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
| Chief Justice: Warren E. Burger Associate Justices: William J. Brennan, Jr., Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor |
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| Case opinions | ||||||
| Majority by: O'Connor Joined by: Burger, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist, Stevens Dissent by: Brennan Joined by: White, Marshall |
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| Laws applied | ||||||
| U.S. Const. Copyright Act of 1976 |
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Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court decision that determined that fair use is not a defense to the appropriation of work by a famous political figure simply because of the public interest in learning of that political figure's account of an historic event.
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In this case, former President Gerald Ford had written memoir including an account of his decision to pardon Richard Nixon. Ford had licensed his publication rights to Harper & Row, which had contracted for the memoir to be printed in TIME. Instead, The Nation magazine published significant excerpts of this account without the permission of Ford, Harper & Row, or Time Magazine. Based on this prior publication, Time withdrew from the contract (as it was permitted to by a clause therein), and Harper & Row filed a lawsuit against The Nation for copyright infringement. The Nation asserted as a defense that Ford was a public figure, and his reasons for pardoning Nixon were of vital interest, and that appropriation in such circumstances should qualify as a fair use.
The issue before the Court was whether a fair use existed where purported infringer published a public figure’s work on an important public event.
The Court, in an opinion by Justice O'Connor noted that the right of first publication is a particularly strong right, and held that there was no 'public figure' exception to copyright protection. The court applied the traditional four factor test to determine if the use was fair, and made the following findings:
Justice Brennan dissented, joined by Justice White and Justice Marshall. They felt that the importance of the issue outweighed the limited power of copyright ownership.
