## Facts

- Paolo Citorello, a Sicilian sailor who could not read music, sang and played on a voyage, recalling fragments of Sicilian folk songs and improvising what he could not remember.
- Citorello claimed the resulting song as his own composition.
- After the voyage, he performed the song for a phonograph-record company representative.
- Another person arranged the score, and a copyright was obtained in Citorello’s name and assigned to Italian Book Co., Inc.
- Defendants Rossi and others produced a competing version, asserting the song was an old Sicilian folk song with words published as early as 1871.
- The evidence showed Citorello’s version shared an overall theme and had similar music to prior folk material, but differed in words and music from any proved earlier version.
- The court found defendants did not copy the public-domain original; instead, they appropriated Citorello’s version, making only “colorable changes.”

## Issues

1. Whether Citorello’s partially remembered and partially improvised version of an old Sicilian folk song contained sufficient original expression to support copyright as a new arrangement.
2. Whether defendants infringed by copying Citorello’s protected variation rather than independently using the underlying public-domain song.

## Decision

- The court held Citorello’s version included sufficient original differences in words and music to be a copyrightable new arrangement of an old song.
- The court found defendants copied Citorello’s arrangement and attempted to conceal copying through colorable changes.
- The court entered a decree for the plaintiff in the usual form.

## Legal Principles

- A public-domain work may be freely copied, but an author may obtain copyright protection for original variations or arrangements added to the public-domain material.
- Copyright in an arrangement protects only the author’s original contribution, not the underlying public-domain theme or elements.
- A defendant may use the public-domain original (including by making an independent improvisation), but may not copy the protected arrangement, even if the underlying material is free for all.

## Conclusion

The court upheld copyright protection for Citorello’s original expressive differences in a folk-song arrangement and found infringement where defendants copied that specific variation rather than returning to the public-domain source.


Italian Book Co. v. Rossi, 27 F.2d 1014 (S.D.N.Y. 1928)