The Copyright of a Map or Chart 443 



OTHER LEGAL DECISIONS 



A survey of a shoal made by plaintiff at his own expense, and used as the 

 basis of a map copyrighted by him, does not become a public document by being 

 deposited in the Navy Department for the use of the government, so that a third 

 person ma}- also use it as the basis of a map (Blunt vs. Patten, Fed. Cas. 1579 ; 

 2 Paine, 393). 



Copyright, being an incorporeal personal right, is not liable to be seized by 

 sheriff in execution, etc. Even when one has obtained a copper-plate under an 

 execution he is not thereby entitled to print and publish copyrighted matter 

 therefrom (Stephens vs. Cady, 55 U. S., 14 How., 528 ; 14 L. Ed., 528 ; Fed. 

 Cas. 13400; Stevens vs. Gladding, 58 U. S., 17 How., 447; 15 L. Ed., 155). 

 The profits, however, may be reached by a creditors' bill. 



The right of an author or of a proprietor under the copyright law is infringed 

 only when other persons produce a substantial copy of the whole or of a material 

 part of the book or other thing for which he secured a copyright ; but any one 

 by his own labor, etc., may make a new map, and where, therefore, the owner 

 of a copyright for maps of certain wards of the ' ' city of New York, surveyed 

 under the direction of insurance companies of said city, which exhibit each lot 

 and building, and the classes as shown by the different coloring and characters 

 set forth in the reference," brought his bill to restrain the publication of similar 

 maps of the city of Philadelphia, the court held that the bill could not be sustained 

 (Perris vs. Hexamer, 99 U. S., 674 ; 25 E. Ed., 308). To maintain an action 

 the complainant must show that his map has been copied. 



The statement has been made that occasionally some map-makers intentionally 

 introduce slight errors in order to more effectually catch the unwary infringer. 



_ ., , Appearance of such an intentional error has been held 



I see, as 111 a map, the end r r 

 of all —Richard III. evidence of copying. From the identity of the inac- 



curacies, it is impossible to deny that the one was 

 copied from the other verbatim et literatim (Longman vs. Winchester, 16 Ves., 

 269. See also Murray vs. Bogue, 1 Drew, 366, and Lawrence vs. Dana, 2 Am. 

 L. T. R., n. s., 402). The penalty for the infringement of a copyrighted map 

 is $1 for each copy found in the possession of the infringer, provided that the 

 sum to be recovered in anyone action shall not exceed $5, 000. The plaintiff can 

 also demand an accounting of the profits and obtain an injunction to prohibit 

 further infringement. 



What ails us, who are sound, 

 That we should mimic this raw fool, the world, 

 Which charts us all in its coarse blacks and whites ? 



— Tennyson. 



