It would be a dangerous undertaking for persons trained only to the law to constitute themselves final judges of the worth of pictorial illustrations, outside of the narrowest and most obvious limits

—of the narrowest and most obvious limits. At the one extreme some works of genius would be sure to miss appreciation. Their very novelty would make them repulsive until the public had learned the new language in which their author spoke. It may be more than doubted, for instance, whether the etchings of Goya or the paintings of Manet would have been sure of …

One's "[p] ersonality always contains something unique. It expresses its singularity even in handwriting, and a very modest grade of art has in it something which is one man's alone."

Certainly we are not merely to use our personal art views to make the new legal application to the facts of this case.

The essential character and identity of a sound recording include, inter alia, the aggregate of the "emphasis or the shading of a musical note, the tone of voice, the inflection, the timing of a vocal rendition, musical or spoken," 1 Nimmer on Copyright § 2.10 (2018); the choice of instrumental, vocal and percussion components; and the subtleties of dynamics and other …

Indeed, "even the slightest artistic relevance" will suffice; courts and juries should not have to engage in extensive "artistic analysis."

—noting that judges' opinions as to whether lesser works of art (posters and lithographs) have enough aesthetic value to warrant copyright protection should be avoided

Yet if they command the interest of any public, they have a commercial value,–it would be bold to say that they have not an aesthetic and educational value,–and the taste of any public is not to be treated with contempt

In fact, as far back as 1903, the United States Supreme Court, through Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, held that "others are free to copy the original (subject matter). They are not free to copy the copy."