I'm thinking about this decision today, though I'm not sure why. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/471/539/case.html That link takes you to Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises , a 1985 Supreme Court decision about copyright and the limits of the "fair use" dissent. So you won't have to follow that link to know what is on my mind, here's the syllabus, pasted. In 1977, former President Ford contracted with petitioners to publish his as yet unwritten memoirs. The agreement gave petitioners the exclusive first serial right to license prepublication excerpts. Two years later, as the memoirs were nearing completion, petitioners, as the copyright holders, negotiated a prepublication licensing agreement with Time Magazine under which Time agreed to pay $25,000 ($12,500 in advance and the balance at publication) in exchange for the right to excerpt 7,500 words from Mr. Ford's account of his pardon of former President Nixon. Shortly before ...
