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 own two-volume biography of Washington. Justice Story found that both Washington’s private and public correspondence were covered by copyright. Justice Story, although “not without some regret,” came to the conclusion that the defendant had simply taken too much of the plaintiff’s work, and issued a permanent injunction against the publication or sale of the defendant’s two-volume Washington biography. He based this decision on the likelihood that the defendant’s work would dampen market demand for the plaintiff’s work by supplying an effective substitute:

If so much is taken, that the value of the original is sensibly diminished, or the labors of the original author are substantially to an injurious extent appropriated by another, that is sufficient, in point of law, to constitute a piracy pro tanto. . . . In short, we must often, in deciding questions of this sort, look to the nature and objects of the selections made, the quantity and value of the materials used, and the degree in which the use may prejudice the sale, or diminish the profits, or supersede the objects, of the original work.