Page:Copyright, Its History And Its Law (1912).djvu/277

 Judge Grosscup in the U. S. Circuit Court in Illinois. But a slight alteration, by the addition on the negative of a cane, thus put into the hands of a person in a photograph not copyrighted in its original form, was held not to justify copyright, in Snow v. Laird, in 1900, by Judge Woods in the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In the N. Y. Supreme Court, in the common law case of Dodge v. Allied Arts Co., in 1903, where the plaintiff had painted four historical scenes on commission which the defendants proposed to have altered, an injunction pending suit was granted by Judge McCall, thus upholding the common law or equity right of an artist to be protected against such misuse of his work.

For the infringement of a work of art the copyright proprietor is entitled (sec. 25) to an injunction, the forfeiture of infringing copies and to damages "as well as all the profits &hellip; or in lieu of actual damages and profits such damages as to the court shall appear to be just," not less than $250 nor more than $5000, except that "in the case of a newspaper reproduction of a copyrighted photograph such damages shall not exceed $200 nor be less than $50." These damages, within the limits stated, may be assessed by the court in the case of painting, statue or sculpture at ten dollars, and in the case of any other works at one dollar, "for every infringing copy made or sold by or found in the possession of the infringer or his agents or employees." Under the old law, damages were confined to copies found in possession, and the courts were constrained to apply this literally though in several recorded cases with evident injustice.

Copyright in artistic works in the United States has always been covered under the general copy right acts, including the code of 1909 providing for copyright for twenty-eight and renewal for a second