The principle is especially important regarding works of art that a copyright proprietor may grant specific license for the limited use of his work; and this has many times been upheld by judicial decisions. In the American courts, such cases have usually been settled by preliminary injunction, without further trial, so that most of the cases are unreported in the law digests, as in that of Miles _v._ American News Co., in 1898, where General Miles obtained a preliminary injunction restraining the distribution by the defendants of "Remington's frontier sketches," including illustrations made for and copyrighted in General Miles' "Personal recollections." In the English case of Nicholls _v._ Parker, in 1901, it was held that a license to print illustrations in the _Graphic_ did not permit their use in another periodical of the defendant despite the defense of "custom of the trade," which the judge characterized as "ridiculous." In the important case of Green _v. Irish Independent_, the Court of Appeal held that the newspaper, though acting "in good faith and without knowledge," was guilty of infringement in printing an illustration sent to it as an advertisement which the proprietor had not licensed for such use. Where, in Guggenheim _v._ Leng, in 1896, the periodical _Sports_ printed and sold as a separate sheet an illustration licensed for use in the periodical, it was held in the Queen's Bench Division that publication and sale of the supplement separately from the paper was beyond the terms of the license and therefore an infringement.
Copyright in a work of art is dependent upon character rather than use. "A picture is none the less a picture and none the less a subject of copyright that it is used for an advertisement," said Justice Holmes in the U. S. Supreme Court, in Bleistein _v._ Donaldson Lith. Co., in 1903, the leading case on this subject, in which three lithographs designed for a circus poster were protected. In Mott _v._ Clow, in 1896, Judge Grosscup in the U. S. Circuit Court in Illinois had held that illustrations, in this instance of bathtubs in a trade catalogue, which "are mere advertisements," are not entitled to copyright; and in Schumacher _v._ Wogram, in 1888, it had been held by Judge Wallace that a picture of a young woman holding a bouquet intended for a cigar label could not be protected as copyright, but should be registered as a trade-mark. "The distinction here," said Judge Wallace, "seems to be that a picture expressly intended as a label should be considered a trade-mark, though a picture which may be used for a label is not for this reason excluded from copyright." An artistic design for paper-box covers was held copyrightable in 1910 in De Jonge _v._ Breuker & Kessler, in the U. S. Circuit Court, by Judge McPherson, who also held that the same subject could not be protected both under copyright and as trade-mark.