“A picture is none the less a picture, and none the less a subject of copyright”

Mr. Justice Holmes

“Certainly works are not the less connected with the fine arts because their pictorial quality attracts the crowd, and therefore gives them a real use,- if use means to increase trade and to help to make money. A picture is none the less a picture, and none the less a subject of copyright, that it is used for an advertisement.”

– Mr. Justice Holmes dispelling the idea that the word ‘art’ in the Copyright Act imported any idea of merit or high degree or appeal to the better educated classes, ruling that circus posters were a proper subject for copyright. Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co., 188 U.S. 239, 250-51, 23 S. Ct. 298, 300 (1903).