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entitled to protection;" and that it was "evident the plaintiff could |
not have considered the letters as of any value whatever as literary |
productions, for a letter cannot be considered of value to the |
author which he never would consent to have published."2 But |
1 "The defendants' counsel say, that a man acquiring a knowledge of another's prop- |
erty without his consent is not by any rule or principle which a court of justice can |
apply (however secretly he may have kept or endeavored to keep it) forbidden without |
his consent to communicate and publish that knowledge to the world, to inform the |
world what the property is, or to describe it publicly, whether orally, or in print or |
writing. |
" I claim, however, leave to doubt whether, as to property of a private nature, which |
the owner, without infringing on the right of any other, may and does retain in a state of |
privacy, it is certain that a person who, without the owner's consent, express or implied, |
acquires a knowledge of it, can lawfully avail himself of the knowledge so acquired to |
publish without his consent a description of the property. |
" It is probably true that such a publication may be in a manner or relate to property |
of a kind rendering a question concerning the lawfulness of the act too slight to deserve |
attention. I can conceive cases, however, ir which an act of the sort may be so circuln- |
stanced or relate to property such, that the matter may weightily affect the owner's |
interest or feelings, or both. For instance, the nature and intention of an unfinished work |
of an artist, prematurely made known to the world, may be painful and deeply prejudicial |
against him; nor would it be difficult to suggest other examples. |
" It was suggested that, to publish a catalogue of a collector's gems, coins, antiquities, |
or other such curiosities, for instance, without his consent, would be to make use of his |
property without his consent; and it is true, certainly, that a proceeding of that kind may |
not only as much embitter one collector's life as it would flatter another, -may be not |
only an ideal calamity, - but may do the owner damage in the most vulgar sense. Such |
catalogues, even when not descriptive, are often sought after, and sometimes obtain very |
substantial prices. These, therefore, and the like instances, are not necessarily examples |
merely of pain inflicted in point of sentiment or imagination; they may be that, and |
something else beside." Knight Bruce, V. C., in Prince Albert v. Strange, 2 DeGex & |
Sm. 652, 689, 690. |
2 Hoyt v. Mackenzie, 3 Barb. Ch. 320i 324 (I848); Wetmore v. Scovell, 3 Edw. Ch. |
5I5 (842). See Sir Thomas Plumer in 2 Ves. & B. I9 (I813). |
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