Taber et al. v. United States.

of statutes respecting commerce, that the common commercial sense of the words is to be adopted, unless there be a distinct controlling sense put upon the words by the legislature. The Supreme Court of the United States have uniformly acted upon this doctrine.

I do not recollect but two instances, in which the phrase, "foreign voyage," occurs in the laws of the United States; and two only have been pointed out at the argument; and, after such thorough researches by counsel, I presume none other exists. One is in the statute of 1806, ch. 62, now under consideration. The other is in the Act of 1793, ch. 52, for enrolling and licensing ships or vessels to be employed in the coasting trade and fisheries. This last Act is the only one specially directed to the whale fisheries, as well as to the cod fisheries. In the 8th section it declares, "that if any ship or vessel enrolled or licensed as aforesaid shall proceed on a foreign voyage without first giving up her enrolment and license," &c., she shall be liable to seizure and forfeiture. Now, here, the words are distinct and appropriate, and applied to the very subject matter of the whale fisheries. "Foreign voyage" is used in contradistinction to fishing voyage, and whaling voyage, expressing the clear sense of the legislature, that a fishing voyage or a whaling voyage is not "a foreign voyage." Nearly thirty years ago this very question under that Act came before the Court in the case of The Three Brothers (1 Gallis. R. 142); and it was then decided, that a fishing vessel, which, according to the course and usage of the fishing employment, went to a foreign port, if it was not for the purpose of trade there, was protected from seizure and forfeiture. In short, she was not engaged in a foreign voyage in the sense of the Act.

Here, then, we have a clear expression of the legislature. on the very point of the interpretation of the words, "foreign

Taber et al. v. United States.

voyage." Upon what ground can this Court, then, declare, that a whaling voyage is a foreign voyage, when Congress have used the words in contradistinction thereto, in an Act pointed to the very subject of the whale fisheries? The Act proceeds in another section (s. 21), to provide for a permit to whaling ships "to touch and trade at any foreign port or place," thus making a distinction between whaling voyages and trading at foreign ports.

The Act of 1803, ch. 62, contains no words expressive of a different or more qualified sense. The words of the Act are perfectly satisfied by understanding them in the common commercial sense, to mean a voyage to a port or place within the territory of a foreign nation. What is more important is, that the remaining sections of the Act are mainly pointed to acts to be done, and to transactions, which are to take place, in foreign ports, where we have regular stationed consuls and commercial agents. It would be impracticable, without a violation of all the common rules of interpretation, to apply the regulations of the second and third sections of the Act to any whaling voyage, or to any voyage except one strictly for the purposes of general trade to a foreign port. Under such circumstances, the general maxim ought to be applied, noscitur à sociis. We are to interpret the whole Act, as having relation to the same common objects, and to be expressive of the same general relations of vessels in the merchant's service in foreign trade.

The Act of 1813, ch. 184, for the regulation of seamen on board of public and private vessels of the United States, seems conclusively to recognise and establish this very construction of the first section of the Act of 1803, ch. 62. It declares (sect. 2), "that in all cases of private vessels of the United States sailing from a port of the United States to a foreign port, the list of the crew, made as heretofore directed

Taber et al. v. United States.

by law, shall be examined by the collector for the District, from which the vessel shall clear out, and, if approved by him, shall be certified accordingly." The very object of this provision, and of the accompanying provisions of the Act, was to afford protection to American citizens, whose names were borne on the list. This object certainly is equally applicable to whaling voyages and to voyages to foreign ports. And yet the legislature speaks only as to the latter; and thereby plainly shows, that the Act of 1803 had reference solely to merchant vessels engaged in trade and bound to foreign ports for the purpose of foreign commerce.

Upon the whole, my judgment is, that a whaling voyage is not, in the common commercial sense of the words, deemed a foreign voyage, any more than a voyage in the cod or other common fisheries; that the words "foreign voyage" are in the common commercial sense applied to voyages to foreign countries, where the main terminus is a foreign port, for the purpose of exportation or importation in the course of trade; and that a voyage, which is to be essentially performed upon the ocean, from its nature and objects, is not deemed foreign to the country. I am also of opinion, that this is the sense, in which the language has been constantly understood by Congress in all our public Acts; and especially, that this is the natural and just sense of the language in the Act of 1803, taking into consideration all the purposes and provisions within the scope of that Act. If the question were entirely new, I should have no doubt on the point. But I think, that Congress, in the Act of 1793, ch. 52, for enrolling and licensing vessels for the whale fisheries, have directly established this very construction; and that no Court of Justice is at liberty to depart from it.

My judgment, therefore, is, that the judgment of the District Court ought to be reversed.

Gray et al. v. Russell et al.

HARRISON GRAY AND OTHERS

US.

JOHN B. RUSSELL AND OTHERS.

Any compilation may be the subject of a copyright, provided the plan, arrangement, and combination of the materials be new.

Though the original sources of information are open to the use of all persons, yet the use of a particular compilation is not. As if a person prepare a map from original surveys, he cannot supersede the right of another person to make similar surveys to accomplish the same end; but no one, without such surveys, has a right to copy the map.

It is of no consequence in what form the works of another author are used, whether it be by a simple reprint, or by incorporating the whole, or a large portion thereof in some larger work.

The question of violation of copyright may depend upon the value, rather than the quantity of the selected materials; as where in an abridgment only the unimportant parts are omitted, or, under pretence of a review, the substance of an original work is given.

The author of an edition of Adam's Latin Grammar made certain additions and alterations in that work, and also prepared notes to it, which the author of a subsequent edition of the same work adopted. Held, that such adoption was an infringement of the copyright of the notes, inasmuch as the notes, though not new, had never before been collected and embodied. Quare, in what cases an abridgment will be regarded as a piracy of the copyright of an original work. A reporter has a copyright in his marginal notes and in the arguments of counsel as prepared and arranged in his work, though he has none in the opinions of the Court, published under the authority of Congress.

BILL in equity. The bill set forth that the complainants, Harrison Gray, James Brown, and Charles Brown, booksellers and copartners, under the firm of Hilliard, Gray, & Co., were the proprietors of the copyright and publishers of a certain book, entitled,

"Adam's Latin Grammar, with some Improvements and the following Additions: Rules for the right pronunciation of

Gray et al. v. Russell et al.

the Latin Language; a Metrical Key to the Odes of Horace; a list of Latin Authors arranged according to the different ages of Roman Literature; Tables showing the value of the various Coins, Weights, and Measures, used among the Romans. By Benjamin A. Gould, Master of the Public Latin School of Boston."

That the complainants became proprietors, in their own right, of said copyright, on the seventh day of March, 1833, by assignment from Cummings, Hilliard & Co., the original proprietors, and ever since that time have been, and now are, such sole proprietors, and ever since the said seventh of March, have had, and now have, the exclusive right of printing, publishing, and exposing for sale and selling copies of the improvements and additions, made and originally published in said edition of said book, entitled as aforesaid. In which edition, the said Benjamin A. Gould, the editor of the same, made the following among other additions and improvements, viz he prefixed rules for accent and rules for the sound of the vowels; detached from the original text and omitted all that related to English Grammar, as distinguished from Latin ; marked the quantity of the penultimate vowel on every Latin word throughout the book, where it was not determined by being placed before another vowel, a double consonant or two single consonants; made divisions of the text by introducing new heads in numerous places; divided the paragraphs in numerous instances, and distinguished parts as more important, by printing them in larger type; in many instances transposed a part of the text of the original work into notes; gave the English of the nouns declined as paradigms; prefixed remarks on gender to the declension of nouns ; arranged the termination of each declension in columns, instead of putting them in transverse lines, as in the original work; added an additional termination in the vocative and ablative cases in the word