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Although Judge Hand’s statement was dictum,^[1] later courts have accepted and applied the Fawcett Publications test for copyright abandonment—an “overt act” that demonstrates the author’s intent “to surrender his rights.” In most of the cases, however, the references to the Fawcett Publications dictum (or similar restatements of the test for abandonment) are themselves dicta, as the courts virtually always conclude that there has been no abandonment, finding insufficient proof of intent,^[2] proof of the required overt act,^[3] or both.^[4]

There are exceedingly few cases squarely presenting a scenario of copyright abandonment. In Bell v. Combined Registry Co.,^[5] a district court determined that a poet, intending to make “a ‘gift’ to the world,”^[6] had abandoned copyright in his poem; but the court of appeals found it unnecessary to reach the abandonment issue because the poet had failed to comply with statutory formalities.^[7] In Pacific & Southern Co. v. Duncan,^[8] a dis-

Court approved the practice of borrowing patent principles when construing the copyright statutes. See infra notes 337–45 and accompanying text.

1. See Fawcett Publ’ns, 191 F.2d at 598 (“[t]here was no evidence in this case of any such an intent” to abandon copyright rights).
2. See, e.g., Dam Things from Den. v. Russ Berrie & Co., 290 F.3d 548, 560 (3d Cir. 2002); A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004, 1026 (9th Cir. 2001); Kepner-Tregoe, Inc. v. Vroom, 186 F.3d 283, 288 (2d Cir. 1999); Dodd, Mead & Co. v. Lilienthal, 514 F. Supp. 105, 108 (S.D.N.Y. 1981); Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. v. Showcase Atlanta Coop. Prods., Inc., 479 F. Supp. 351, 362 (N.D. Ga. 1979); Lottie Joplin Thomas Trust v. Crown Publishers, Inc., 456 F. Supp. 531, 535 (S.D.N.Y. 1977); L&L White Metal Casting Corp. v. Cornell Metal Specialties Corp., 353 F. Supp. 1170, 1174 (E.D.N.Y. 1972); Nat’l Council of Young Israel, Inc. v. Feit Co., 347 F. Supp. 1293, 1297 (S.D.N.Y. 1972); Marvin Worth Prods. v. Superior Films Corp., 319 F. Supp. 1269, 1273 (S.D.N.Y. 1970); Grove Press, Inc. v. Greenleaf Pub. Co., 247 F. Supp. 518, 527–28 (E.D.N.Y. 1965); cf. Capitol Records, Inc. v. Naxos of Am., Inc., 372 F.3d 471, 483–84 (2d Cir. 2004) (finding that conflicting evidence of intent to abandon precluded summary disposition); Schatt v. Curtis Mgmt. Group, 764 F. Supp. 902, 907–08 (S.D.N.Y. 1991) (same); Rexnord Inc. v. Modern Handling Sys., Inc., 379 F. Supp. 1190, 1199 (D. Del. 1974) (same).
3. See, e.g., Micro Star v. FormGen Inc., 154 F.3d 1107, 1114 (9th Cir. 1998) (although overt act representing partial abandonment may have occurred, “abandoning some rights is not the same as abandoning all rights, and FormGen never overtly abandoned its rights to profit commercially”); Hampton v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 279 F.2d 100, 104 (9th Cir. 1960); John G. Danielson, Inc. v. Winchester-Conant Props., Inc., 186 F. Supp. 2d 1, 24 (D. Mass. 2002); Encyclopaedia Britannica Educ. Corp. v. Crooks, 542 F. Supp. 1156, 1180 (W.D.N.Y. 1982); Filmvideo Releasing Corp. v. Hastings, 426 F. Supp. 690, 695 (S.D.N.Y. 1976) (failure to renew copyright in derivative motion pictures did not constitute an overt act abandoning copyright in the underlying novels on which the motion pictures were based); Rohauer v. Killiam Shows, Inc., 379 F. Supp. 723, 730–31 (S.D.N.Y. 1974), rev’d on other grounds, 551 F.2d 484 (2d Cir. 1977); Judscott Handprints, Ltd. v. Washington Wall Paper Co., 377 F. Supp. 1372, 1378 (E.D.N.Y. 1974); Sw. Bell Tel. Co. v. Nationwide Indep. Directory Serv., Inc., 371 F. Supp. 900, 906 (W.D. Ark. 1974).
4. See, e.g., Paramount Pictures Corp. v. Carol Publ’g. Group, 11 F. Supp. 2d 329, 337 (S.D.N.Y. 1998), aff’d mem., 181 F.3d 83 (2d Cir. 1999); Jackson v. MPI Home Video, 694 F. Supp. 483, 490–91 (N.D. Ill. 1988).
5. 397 F. Supp. 1241 (N.D. Ill. 1975), aff’d, 536 F.2d 164 (7th Cir. 1976).
6. 397 F. Supp. at 1249.
7. 536 F.2d at 170.
8. 572 F. Supp. 1186 (N.D. Ga. 1983), aff’d in part, rev’d in part, 744 F.2d 1490 (11th Cir. 1984).