Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Headline: Court rules first-sale rule applies to copies made abroad, allowing lawful owners to import and resell foreign editions and limiting publishers’ ability to control downstream sales, affecting libraries, retailers, and students.
Holding:
- Lets lawful buyers import and resell foreign-made books without publisher permission.
- Limits publishers’ control over resale, affecting libraries, used bookstores, and campus sellers.
- May reduce publishers’ ability to price-segment international markets.
Summary
Background
Supap Kirtsaeng, a student from Thailand, asked friends and family to buy cheaper English-language textbooks printed and sold abroad by a foreign subsidiary of Wiley. They mailed those foreign editions to him in the United States. He resold them, reimbursed his helpers, and kept the profits. Wiley, an academic publisher, sued for copyright infringement, saying the unauthorized importation and resale violated its U.S. distribution rights.
Reasoning
The Court considered whether the “first sale” rule — which lets the owner of a lawfully made copy resell it without the copyright owner’s permission — applies when a copy was made outside the United States. The majority concluded that “lawfully made under this title” means made in accordance with U.S. copyright law, not necessarily physically made in the United States. The Court relied on the text, statutory history, and the common-law background of first sale to reach that conclusion.
Real world impact
The ruling means lawful owners of foreign-made copies can generally import, lend, and resell those items in the United States without further permission. That limits publishers’ downstream control and affects students, libraries, used-book sellers, retailers, museums, and technology resale markets. The decision reverses the Second Circuit and remands the case; it may not finally resolve every related factual situation.
Dissents or concurrances
A dissent warned the decision adopts an international-exhaustion approach that could undermine publishers’ ability to segment markets and protect U.S. copyright owners abroad. A concurring Justice agreed with the outcome but suggested concerns lay mainly with the earlier Quality King decision.
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