In the case of Jewell-LaSalle Realty Company v. Buck et al., 1930, the U.S Supreme Court ruled on a copyright dispute involving radio broadcasts in hotels. The plaintiff, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), claimed that Jewell-LaSalle Realty Company had infringed upon their copyrights by playing copyrighted music over radios in its hotel without obtaining licenses from ASCAP. The defendant argued that they were merely using purchased radios to receive public broadcasts and not directly performing the copyrighted works themselves. However, the court sided with ASCAP stating that when a hotel uses a radio receiver to distribute music throughout its premises for entertainment purposes it is considered as "performing" under copyright law even if indirectly so through broadcasting technology. Therefore, such use requires permission from copyright holders or their representatives like ASCAP.

In the dissenting opinion for Jewell-LaSalle Realty Company v. Buck et al., Justice Holmes argued that the hotel's use of a radio receiver to amplify and distribute signals it received did not constitute copyright infringement. He reasoned that since anyone could receive these signals, they were essentially public property once broadcasted. The hotel was merely using technology to make them audible to its guests, which he likened to reading aloud from a copyrighted book in a public place - an act generally accepted as non-infringing on copyright laws. Therefore, according to Justice Holmes' interpretation of the law at this time, no unauthorized reproduction or performance had taken place by amplifying and distributing already publicly accessible radio broadcasts within their premises.