Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The Supreme Court ruled that copyright law's "first sale" doctrine protects the resale of books and other copyrighted goods even when they were manufactured abroad, siding with a graduate student who resold textbooks he had imported from Thailand.
The decision means publishers and other copyright holders generally cannot use U.S. copyright law to block the resale of their products just because those products were made overseas, a ruling with sweeping implications for libraries, secondhand sellers, and the global trade in everyday consumer goods.
“We hold that the “first sale” doctrine applies to copies of a copyrighted work lawfully made abroad.”
The Court's core holding extending first-sale protection to foreign-made copies.
How it got here: A jury found Kirtsaeng liable and awarded damages; the Second Circuit affirmed, holding the first-sale doctrine doesn't cover foreign-made copies; the Supreme Court took the case to resolve a circuit split.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Supap Kirtsaeng, a Thai citizen studying mathematics in the United States, asked friends and family to buy cheaper foreign editions of Wiley's English-language textbooks in Thailand and mail them to him. He resold the books in the U.S., reimbursed his family and friends, and kept the profit. Wiley, the textbook publisher, sued him for copyright infringement, arguing the foreign editions were meant to be sold only abroad.
The question before the Court
Can someone resell copyrighted textbooks in the United States after buying them cheaply abroad, if the books were manufactured overseas with the publisher's permission?
The Court's answer
Yes — the first-sale doctrine protects the resale of copyrighted works lawfully made abroad, just as it protects copies made in the United States. The Court read the phrase "lawfully made under this title" to mean made in compliance with the Copyright Act, not made within U.S. borders, so geography does not determine whether a copy qualifies for first-sale protection.
Because Kirtsaeng's textbooks were made and sold abroad with the publisher's permission, they were "lawfully made," and once sold, the publisher's control over further distribution of those particular copies ended. That meant Kirtsaeng could import and resell them without the publisher's separate authorization, even though doing so undercut the publisher's efforts to charge different prices in different countries.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
The ruling protects libraries, used-book dealers, museums, and consumers who buy or resell products containing copyrighted material — from books to software-equipped cars — no matter where those items were made. It also limits publishers' ability to charge different prices for the same product in different countries, since buyers can now legally import and resell foreign editions in the United States.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision. The Second Circuit's judgment against Kirtsaeng is reversed, and the case is sent back for further proceedings consistent with the Court's reading of the first-sale doctrine. Going forward, resellers, libraries, and retailers can rely on the first-sale doctrine for lawfully made copies regardless of where they were manufactured, though the ruling also narrows how much independent force the separate importation-ban provision retains.
What this does not decide
The Court did not resolve exactly how much work the separate importation-ban provision (§602(a)(1)) has left to do; Justice Kagan's concurrence flagged that combining this ruling with an earlier decision (Quality King) leaves that import ban applicable only to a narrow, unusual set of situations, a tension the majority did not fully settle.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Kagan
Justice Kagan agreed fully with the majority's reading of §109(a) but wrote separately to note that, combined with the Court's earlier Quality King decision, today's ruling leaves the importation ban in §602(a)(1) with only a narrow, largely theoretical role. She argued that if Congress wants stronger import controls to let publishers segment international markets, the real fix would be revisiting Quality King, not reinterpreting §109(a) as Wiley urged.
Dissent — Justice Ginsburg
Justice Ginsburg argued that 'lawfully made under this title' should mean a copy's creation was actually governed by U.S. copyright law, which does not apply outside the United States, so foreign-manufactured copies do not qualify for first-sale protection. She contended the text, legislative history, and the United States' longstanding opposition to 'international exhaustion' in trade negotiations all support a geographic reading, and that the majority's feared practical harms are exaggerated and mitigated by other legal doctrines. She would have affirmed the Second Circuit and held Kirtsaeng liable.
Dissent in part — Justice Scalia
Justice Scalia joined Justice Ginsburg's dissent in full except for Part III, which relied on legislative history, and Part V-B-1, which discussed antitrust principles — suggesting he agreed with the core textual and doctrinal objections to the majority's ruling but did not join the portions resting on legislative history or antitrust reasoning.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court had to decide what 'lawfully made under this title' means in the first-sale doctrine (17 U.S.C. §109(a)) — Wiley read it as a geographic limit tied to where a copy was manufactured, while Kirtsaeng read it simply as made 'in accordance with' the Copyright Act, regardless of location.
- Examining the statute's wording, the Court found nothing about geography in the phrase; the word 'under' naturally means 'in accordance with,' and reading it as a place-based requirement forced awkward, strained interpretations of surrounding words like 'applicable.'
- The Court compared the current provision to its 1909 predecessor, which covered anyone who 'lawfully obtained' a copy; the switch to covering only owners of a 'lawfully made' copy was meant to exclude lessees and bailees, not to draw a line between domestic and foreign manufacture.
- Applying the rule that when a statute codifies a common-law doctrine, courts presume Congress meant to keep that doctrine's substance, the Court noted the first-sale rule's common-law roots (traced to a 1908 decision and even Lord Coke) never distinguished based on where a good was made.
- Weighing the practical fallout, the Court reasoned that a geographic reading would create sweeping, unintended liability for libraries, used-book sellers, museums, and owners of everyday goods containing foreign-made copyrighted software or packaging, which made that reading implausible as Congress's actual intent.
- Concluding that the text, statutory context, and common-law history all pointed the same way, the Court adopted the non-geographical reading, meaning the first-sale doctrine covers copies made lawfully anywhere in the world.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Quality King Distributors, Inc. v. L'anza Research Int'l, Inc. (523 U. S. 135)
That case involved copies made in the U.S. and sent abroad; this decision extends first-sale protection to copies made abroad from the start.
Reaffirms Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus (210 U. S. 339)
The Court relies on this 1908 decision as establishing the first-sale doctrine with no geographic limitation.