Bong v. Alfred S. Campbell Art Co.

Background

A German citizen living in Berlin bought what he said were the exclusive reproduction rights to a painting and applied for a U.S. copyright before any copies were published. A New Jersey corporation sold thousands of color reproductions under another title, and the assignee sued for statutory penalties and forfeitures under the copyright law. At trial the plaintiff’s lawyer said he would not prove the painter’s citizenship, and the defense said the painter was a citizen of Peru, a country for which no presidential proclamation of reciprocal copyright relations had been made.

Reasoning

The Court addressed whether an assignee who is a citizen of a country with U.S. copyright relations can obtain federal copyright protection when the original artist is a citizen of a nation that lacks such recognized reciprocity. The opinion relied on earlier decisions explaining that an assignee’s right depends on the original author’s statutory entitlement. The Court read the statute to require a presidential proclamation that a foreign country provides reciprocal copyright rights; that proclamation is a condition for protection, not merely a convenient proof device.

Real world impact

Because the painter was identified as a Peruvian citizen and no presidential proclamation recognized Peru’s reciprocity, the assignee could not enforce the federal copyright and could not collect the statutory penalties or forfeitures. The decision affirms that executive determinations about reciprocal relations are decisive for foreign authorship questions under the federal statute, and it leaves factual development of such claims to the evidence in ordinary cases.