Supreme Court of the United States · Official docket →
Ralph W. Baker, Jr. v. Ta-Nehisi P. Coates, et al.
IFP petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, No. 23-7483 · judgment December 11, 2024
Question presented
Whether the court of appeals departed from this Court’s decision that an author’s arrangement of words is protectible: The right thus secured by the copyright act is not a right to the use of certain words, because they are the common property of the human race, and are as little susceptible of private appropriation as air or sunlight; nor is it the right to ideas alone, since in the absence of means of communicating them they are of value to no one but the author. But the right is to that arrangement of words which the author has selected to express his ideas. Or, as Lord Mansfield describes it, ‘an incorporeal right to print a set of intellectual ideas, or modes of thinking, communicated in a set of words or sentences, and modes of expression. It is equally detached from the manuscript, or any other physical existence whatsoever.’ 4 Burrows, 2396. Holmes v. Hurst. 174 U.S. 82 (1899).
Counsel of record
For petitioner
Ralph W. Baker Jr.
For respondent
Tal Efriam Dickstein
Loeb & Loeb LLP
Case
Conference history
Distributed for 2 conferences
Proceedings
- Sep 10 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 9/29/2025.
- Jun 11 2025Petition for Rehearing filed.
- May 19 2025Because the Court lacks a quorum, 28 U. S. C. §1, and since the qualified Justices are of the opinion that the case cannot be heard and determined at the next Term of the Court, the judgment is affirmed under 28 U. S. C. §2109, which provides that under these circumstances "the court shall enter its order affirming the judgment of the court from which the case was brought for review with the same effect as upon affirmance by an equally divided court." Justice Alito, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Barrett, and Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of this petition.
- Apr 30 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 5/15/2025.
- Apr 23 2025Waiver of right of respondents Apollo Theater Foundation, Inc. and Kamilah Forbes to respond filed.
- Apr 18 2025Waiver of right of respondents Ms. Oprah Winfrey and Apple Inc. to respond filed.
- Mar 31 2025Waiver of right of respondents Ta-Nehisi Coates, et al. to respond filed.
- Mar 11 2025Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due April 24, 2025)