350
Opinion of the Court
Beckford v. Hood, 7 T. R. 621, 627, 101 Eng. Rep. 1164, 1167 (K. B. 1798) (opinion of Kenyon, C. J.) ("[T]he statute having vested that right in the author, the common law gives the remedy by action on the case for the violation of it").
The practice of trying copyright damages actions at law before juries was followed in this country, where statutory copyright protections were enacted even before adoption of the Constitution. In 1783, the Continental Congress passed a resolution recommending that the States secure copyright protections for authors. See U. S. Copyright Office, Copyright Enactments: Laws Passed in the United States Since 1783 Relating to Copyright, Bulletin No. 3, p. 1 (rev. ed. 1963) (hereinafter Copyright Enactments). Twelve States (all except Delaware) responded by enacting copyright statutes, each of which provided a cause of action for damages, and none of which made any reference to equity jurisdiction. At least three of these state statutes expressly stated that damages were to be recovered through actions at law, see id., at 2 (in Connecticut, damages for double the value of the infringed copy "to be recovered . . . in any court of law in this State"); id., at 17 (in Georgia, similar damages enforceable "in due course of law"); id., at 19 (in New York, similar damages enforceable in "any court of law"), while four others provided that damages would be recovered in an "action of debt," a prototypical action brought in a court of law before a jury. See F. Maitland, Forms of Action at Common Law 357 (1929) (hereinafter Maitland); see Copyright Enactments 4-9 (in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, damages enforceable by "action of debt"); id., at 12 (in South Carolina, damages of one shilling per sheet enforceable by "debt, bill, plaint or information"). Although these statutes were short-lived, and hence few courts had occasion to interpret them, the available evidence suggests that the practice was for copyright actions seeking damages to be tried to a jury. See Hudson & Goodwin v. Patten, 1 Root 133, 134
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