In the case of Belford v. Scribner, 1891, the U.S Supreme Court was tasked with determining whether a copyright infringement had occurred. The plaintiff, Belford, claimed that Scribner's publication of an abridged version of Macaulay's History infringed upon his exclusive right to print and sell this work in America. However, the court found that there was no violation as it considered two key factors: first being whether or not an author has a property right in their ideas (which they do not), and secondly if there is substantial similarity between the original work and its alleged copy (which did not exist in this case). Therefore, since Scribner’s abridgment involved considerable labor and skill without copying any text verbatim from Belford’s edition nor using his annotations or notes; it constituted a new arrangement which could be copyrighted separately under law at that time.

In the dissenting opinion for Belford v. Scribner, Justice Brewer argued that the majority's decision to deny copyright protection to a publisher who had merely compiled and arranged existing works was overly narrow and failed to recognize the creative labor involved in such compilations. He contended that while individual components of a compilation might not be original, their selection and arrangement could involve significant creativity deserving of legal protection. Furthermore, he suggested that denying copyright protection in these cases would discourage publishers from investing time and resources into creating valuable new compilations of existing works. Thus, he disagreed with the majority's interpretation of what constituted an 'original' work under U.S copyright law.