Wheaton v. Peters

Wheaton v. Peters
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided March 19, 1834
Full case name	Henry Wheaton and Robert Donaldson, Appellants v. Richard Peters and John Grigg
Citations	33 U.S. 591 (more) 8 Pet. 591; 8 L. Ed. 1055; 1834 U.S. LEXIS 619
Holding
There is no common law copyright after a work's publication, and court reporters cannot hold copyrights on the cases compiled in the course of their work.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Marshall Associate Justices William Johnson · Gabriel Duvall Joseph Story · Smith Thompson John McLean · Henry Baldwin
Case opinions
Majority	McLean, joined by Marshall, Johnson, Duvall, Story
Dissent	Thompson
Dissent	Baldwin

Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. (8 Pet.) 591 (1834), was the first United States Supreme Court ruling on copyright. The case upheld the power of Congress to make a grant of copyright protection subject to conditions and rejected the doctrine of a common law copyright in published works. The Court also declared that there could be no copyright in the Court's own judicial decisions.^[1]