Mirage Editions, Inc. v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co.
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
856 F.2d 1341 (1988)
Albuquerque A.R.T. Co. (A.R.T.) (defendant) bought a compilation book containing licensed prints of Patrick Nagel's artwork, cut individual pages from the book, and mounted them onto tiles for sale and display. Mirage Editions (Mirage) (plaintiff), which owned the copyrights to Nagel's works, sued A.R.T. for copyright infringement; the district court granted Mirage summary judgment, finding the mounting process created infringing derivative works, and A.R.T. appealed, arguing the first-sale doctrine authorized its use of the pages it had legitimately purchased.
Whether the mounting of copyright-protected images physically removed from a book constitutes preparation of a derivative work.