U.S. Supreme Court
Perris v. Hexamer
99 U.S. 674
1878
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the
opinion of the court.
The complainants are the owners of a
copyright of a series of maps of the city of New York, prepared for the use of
those engaged in the business of fire insurance, the title of which is as
follows: "Maps of the city of New York, surveyed under the direction of
insurance companies of said city, by William Perris, civil engineer and
surveyor, 1852. Volume 1 comprising the 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th wards. The maps
exhibit each lot and building, and the classes as shown by the different
coloring and characters set forth in the reference." The maps were made
after a careful survey and examination of the lots and buildings in the
enumerated wards of the city, and were so marked with arbitrary coloring and
signs, explained by a reference or key, that an insurer could see at a glance
what were the general characteristics of the different buildings within the
territory delineated, and many other details of construction and occupancy
necessary for his information when taking risks. They are useful contrivances
for the despatch of business, but of no value whatever except in connection
with the identical property they purport to describe.
The defendant made the necessary
examination and survey, and published a similar series of maps of Philadelphia.
At first he used substantially the same system of coloring and signs, and
consequently substantially the same key that had been adopted by the
complainants, but afterwards he changed his signs somewhat, and, of course,
changed his key.
The question we are to consider is
whether the publication of the defendant infringes the copyright of the
complainants, and we think it does not. A copyright gives the author or the
publisher the exclusive right of multiplying copies of what he has written or
printed. It follows that to infringe this right a substantial copy of the whole
or of a material part must be produced. It needs no argument to show that the
defendant's maps are not copies, either in whole or in part, of those of the
complainants. They are arranged substantially on the same plan, but those of
the defendant represent Philadelphia, while those of the complainants represent
New York. They are not only not copies of each other, but they do not convey
the same information.
The complainants have no more an
exclusive right to use the form of the characters they employ to express their
ideas upon the face of the map, than they have to use the form of type they
select to print the key. Scarcely any map is published on which certain
arbitrary signs, explained by a key printed at some convenient place for
reference, are not used to designate objects of special interest, such as
rivers, railroads, boundaries, cities, towns, &c.; and yet we think it has
never been supposed that a simple copyright of the map gave the publisher an
exclusive right to the use upon other maps of the particular signs and key
which he saw fit to adopt for the purposes of his delineations. That, however,
is what the complainants seek to accomplish in this case. The defendant has not
copied their maps. All he has done at any time has been to use to some extent
their system of arbitrary signs and their key.
Decree affirmed.