United States Sporting Products v. Johnny Stewart Game Calls

Johnny Stewart started his business, Johnny Stewart Game Calls, Inc. (Game Calls), by venturing into the wild and either recording animal sounds in the animals natural habitats or capturing the animals to record their sounds in a more conducive setting. The recording process itself was long and labor intensive. Stewart travelled extensively to gather a variety of sounds. To get a satisfactory sample, he would record an animal on several occasions, attempting to eliminate unwanted background noise such as an airplane overhead or a passing automobile. Even then, the resulting animal sounds might not be adequate on any given occasion. To overcome these problems, the sample of several seconds would be edited and "looped" repetitiously to occupy a full-length cassette tape. Hunters and photographers purchased Stewarts tapes and used them to draw animals into close range.