Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enters.
| Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises | |
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| Argued November 6, 1984 Decided May 20, 1985 |
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| Full case name | Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., et al. v. Nation Enterprises, et al. |
| Citations | 471 U.S. 539 (more)
105 S. Ct. 2218; 85 L. Ed. 2d 588; 1985 U.S. LEXIS 17; 53 U.S.L.W. 4562; 225 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 1073; 11 Media L. Rep. 1969
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| Prior history | Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit |
| Holding | |
| The Court determined that fair use is not a defense to the pre-publication, commercial appropriation of work by a famous political figure simply because of the public interest in learning of that political figure's account of an historic event. | |
| Court membership | |
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| Case opinions | |
| Majority | O'Connor, joined by Burger, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist, Stevens |
| Dissent | Brennan, joined by White, Marshall |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. I, Copyright Act of 1976 | |
Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which public interest in learning about a historical figure’s impressions of a historic event was held not to be sufficient to show fair use of material otherwise protected by copyright. Defendant, The Nation, had summarized and quoted substantially from A Time to Heal, president Gerald Ford's forthcoming memoir of his decision to pardon former president Richard Nixon. When Harper & Row, who held the rights to A Time to Heal, brought suit, The Nation asserted that its use of the book was protected under the doctrine of fair use, because of the great public interest in a historical figure’s account of a historic incident. The Court rejected this argument holding that the right of first publication was important enough to find in favor of Harper.
Former President Gerald Ford had written a memoir, A Time to Heal, including an account of his decision to pardon Richard Nixon. Ford had licensed his publication rights to Harper & Row, which had contracted for excerpts of the memoir to be printed in Time. Instead, The Nation magazine published 300 to 400 words of verbatim quotes from the 500-page book without the permission of Ford, Harper & Row, or Time magazine. Based on this prior publication, Time withdrew from the contract (as it was permitted to by a clause therein), and Harper & Row filed a lawsuit against The Nation for copyright infringement. The Nation asserted as a defense that Ford was a public figure, and his reasons for pardoning Nixon were of vital interest, and that appropriation in such circumstances should qualify as a fair use.
The federal trial judge, Richard Owen, ruled in favor of Harper & Row and awarded damages. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling, finding that The Nation's actions in quoting the memoirs were protected by fair use privilege. Harper & Row appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court.
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