Lew Wallace, a former Union army general, wrote Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ in 1880, which became one of the best-selling works at its time surpassing Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Judge Emile Henry Lacombe did not accept this argument, ruling against Kalem in May 1908 in that their "moving picture" that had used ideas from the book violated copyright.

Second Circuit Judge Henry Galbraith Ward denied the appeal in March 1909 and stated that even a series of moving pictures would qualify as a form of expression and thus covered under copyright law.

Because of the potential impact of the decision on the film industry, Kalem brought in the support of the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC) to help finance the legal challenge to the Supreme Court.

According to Jon Solomon in The Ancient World in Silent Cinema, the focus on adaptions created the need for competent scriptwriters that could readily convert novels into moving pictures.