Rhea & Judy Little Brentwood Service Inc. v. Shell Oil Co.

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• reaffirming “well-established doctrine that a derivative copyright protects only the new material contained in the derivative work, not the matter derived from the underlying work”
• explaining that, under the 1909 Act, it was “the well-established doctrine that a derivative copyright protects only the new material contained in the derivative work, not the matter derived from the underlying work.”
• “[Established doctrine prevents unauthorized copying or other infringing use of the underlying work or any part of that work contained in the derivative product so long as the underlying work itself remains copyrighted”
• \[E]stablished doctrine prevents unauthorized copying or other infringing use of the underlying work or any part of that work contained in the derivative product so long as the underlying work itself remains copyrighted\
• \Defendants at no time changed their film distribution activities in reliance on [Plaintiff's] conduct.\
• “Therefore, since exhibition of the film ‘Pygmalion’ necessarily involves exhibition of parts of Shaw’s play, which is still copyrighted, plaintiffs here may prevent defendants from renting the film for exhibition without their authorization.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).