First Sale Doctrine Upheld by US Supreme Court ~pj

This is the one you have been waiting for: Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [PDF]. Mr. Kirtsaeng has prevailed. Hugely. I'll work on a text version for you next, but I didn't want you to have to wait one second longer to hear the news.

Mr. Kirtsaeng, for any here who are new, is from Thailand, and he came here to study at Cornell. To fund his education, he had his family buy books in Thailand published abroad, send them to him, and he then resold them in the US. He made about $100,000 that way, and the publisher took note. John Wiley & Sons sued him for copyright infringement, and at the district court level and at the appeals court, they prevailed. The Supreme Court, however, overturned, saying that once the publisher sold its books, that was the end of their control over them, thanks to the first sale doctrine. The court noted that there is no geographical language limiting it just to the US:

Putting section numbers to the side, we ask whether the "first sale" doctrine applies to protect a buyer or other lawful owner of a copy (of a copyrighted work) lawfully manufactured abroad. Can that buyer bring that copy into the United States (and sell it or give it away) without obtaining permission to do so from the copyright owner? Can, for example, someone who purchases, say at a used bookstore, a book printed abroad subsequently resell it without the copyright owner's permission?

In our view, the answers to these questions are, yes. We hold that the "first sale" doctrine applies to copies of a copyrighted work lawfully made abroad.

This was a case where amici briefs seem to have influenced the court.