would not infringe the copyright of the work parodied merely because a few lines of the original might be textually reproduced." The judge added: "No doubt the good faith of such mimicry is an essential element; a mere attempt to evade the owners' copyright . . . would properly be prohibited" as "doing in a roundabout way what could not be done directly."
Infringement
by single
situationThere may be infringement of dramatic copyright in the use of a single scene or situation, as already set forth with respect to novels, provided this is of dramatic character. In 1892, in Daly v. Webster, the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals, through Judge Lacombe, held that the railroad rescue scene in Brady's "After dark" infringed the copyright of Daly's "Under the gaslight," which contained the similar situation of the rescue of a person on a railroad track before an approaching train. Though there was little dialogue in this scene, the court held that while mechanical appliances are not entitled to copyright, a series of events dramatically represented are copyrightable. In the subsequent suit for damages, Daly v. Brady, the U. S. Supreme Court in 1899, through Justice Peckham, upheld this decision, and held also that such a situation constituted an integral part of the copyrighted drama and should therefore be protected against infringement. That there may be infringement of a dramatic composition without the use of scenery or costumes was incidentally decided in Russell v. Smith, where the song "The ship on fire," sung dramatically without these accessories, was protected as a dramatic piece.
Protection of
titleWhile the title of a dramatic or musical composition, like that of a book, cannot be copyrighted as such, the courts seem disposed to emphasize the title as an integral part of a play, perhaps more than in the case of a book because the advertising of another play of
