Napoleon Sarony, a celebrity portrait photographer based in New York, successfully sued Burrow-Giles Lithography Company in the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York. The court held that Burrow-Giles was liable for copyright infringement because it had reproduced and sold lithographs based on Sarony’s photograph Oscar Wilde No. 18.

Burrow-Giles appealed this decision to the Supreme Court, challenging 1) whether Congress had the power to protect photographs and negatives under copyright and 2) if the words “Copyright, 1882, N. Sarony” were sufficient notice of copyright. The Court ruled that Sarony’s photograph was eligible for copyright protection and that he had given sufficient notice, but considered Congress’ constitutional power in greater depth.

Burrow-Giles argued that the 1865 amendment to the copyright laws, extending copyright protection to photographs, exceeded Congress’ constitutional power under Article I, Section 8, clause 8 (“To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing, for limited times to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries”). The defendant urged that photographs, as the products of mechanical processes, lacked authorship. Although the Court declined to provide a definitive answer for all photographs, it held that the selection and arrangement of the settings, costume, pose, lighting and angle in Oscar Wilde No. 18 constituted an original work of art that could be copyrighted and affirmed the lower court decision in favor of Sarony.

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