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256 Compilations also constitute infringement if they extract substantial parts of a copyright work, beyond the limits of "fair use," or even if they adopt the plan or arrangement or bodily transfer the material of a copyright compilation of non-copyright matter.

A curious complaint of infringement by abridgment was made in Gabriel v. McCabe, in 1896, before Judge Grosscup in the U. S. Circuit Court in Illinois, where the plaintiff had licensed the use of a copyright song, "When the roll is called up yonder," in a collection of religious poetry, "The finest of the wheat, no. 2," published by the defendant, who included the song also in an abridged edition of this collection and in a combined edition of this and another collection. Judge Grosscup held that: "Future editions of a book may contain a composition published in an earlier edition by license, even though parts of the earlier edition are omitted To hold otherwise would practically forbid any new editions of books of compilations, for the consent of all the authors contributing could not, in many instances, be obtained." But if the collection had been so abridged as to result in the publication of the song alone as sheet music, it would have been an unfair use under the license.

The general principles as to quotation beyond "fair use" were well laid down by Lord Chancellor Eldon, in the early English case of Mawman v. Tegg, in 1826: "If the parts which have been copied cannot be separated from those which are original, without destroying the use and value of the original matter, he who has made an improper use of that which did not belong to him must suffer the consequences of so doing. If a man mixes what belongs to him with what belongs to me, and the mixture be forbidden by law, he must again separate them, and he must bear all the mischief and loss which the separation may occasion.