oggbashan
Dying Truth seeker
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2002
- Posts
- 56,017
An extract from my bookdealer's briefing notes:
...we published a report about a student’s mass importation of text books from Thailand, where they are much cheaper than in the USA. He then sold them for profit. The publishers took legal action and a US Appeals Court ruled against the student.
To ban the importation and sale of books in the USA which had been printed and published outside the USA would affect all sides of the book trade.
The U.S.Supreme Court has now decided a case that affects both booksellers and book dealers.
The case is Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-697_d1o2.pdf
There, the plaintiff Wiley owned the copyrights to books that were first manufactured and sold outside the United States. The defendant, Kirtsaeng, a citizen of Thailand, moved to the United States to study. While he was studying in the United States, the defendant asked his friends and family in Thailand to buy copies of foreign edition English language textbooks at Thai book shops, where they sold at low prices, and to mail them to him in the United States. He would then sell them, reimburse his family and friends, and keep the profit. Wiley brought a federal lawsuit against Kirtsaeng for copyright infringement. Wiley claimed that the defendant's unauthorized importation of its books and his later resale of those books amounted to an infringement of Wiley’s 17 U.S.C. § 106(3) exclusive right to distribute as well as § 602’s related import prohibition.
The principal issue in the case concerned the application of the first-sale (aka exhaustion) doctrine of copyright law.
As many of you already know, the first-sale doctrine states that a work first made and sold in the United States can be resold without violating the copyright owner's right of distribution. The issue in Kirtsaeng was whether the first-sale doctrine also applies to copyrighted works first made and sold abroad, and that are later imported into the United States.
Settling some conflicting authorities on the topic, the Supreme Court held that it did. So a book that is made and first sold in the UK, for example, can be imported and sold in the United States without fear of violating the copyright owner's right to distribute or control of importation. The decision was 6 to 3.
Although there was already a "grey market" for foreign-made books in the United States, this case now makes it clear booksellers in the United States can freely sell foreign-made books in the United States (at least under copyright law). It remains to be seen whether publishers will lobby Congress to change the statute to eliminate this new rule.
...we published a report about a student’s mass importation of text books from Thailand, where they are much cheaper than in the USA. He then sold them for profit. The publishers took legal action and a US Appeals Court ruled against the student.
To ban the importation and sale of books in the USA which had been printed and published outside the USA would affect all sides of the book trade.
The U.S.Supreme Court has now decided a case that affects both booksellers and book dealers.
The case is Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-697_d1o2.pdf
There, the plaintiff Wiley owned the copyrights to books that were first manufactured and sold outside the United States. The defendant, Kirtsaeng, a citizen of Thailand, moved to the United States to study. While he was studying in the United States, the defendant asked his friends and family in Thailand to buy copies of foreign edition English language textbooks at Thai book shops, where they sold at low prices, and to mail them to him in the United States. He would then sell them, reimburse his family and friends, and keep the profit. Wiley brought a federal lawsuit against Kirtsaeng for copyright infringement. Wiley claimed that the defendant's unauthorized importation of its books and his later resale of those books amounted to an infringement of Wiley’s 17 U.S.C. § 106(3) exclusive right to distribute as well as § 602’s related import prohibition.
The principal issue in the case concerned the application of the first-sale (aka exhaustion) doctrine of copyright law.
As many of you already know, the first-sale doctrine states that a work first made and sold in the United States can be resold without violating the copyright owner's right of distribution. The issue in Kirtsaeng was whether the first-sale doctrine also applies to copyrighted works first made and sold abroad, and that are later imported into the United States.
Settling some conflicting authorities on the topic, the Supreme Court held that it did. So a book that is made and first sold in the UK, for example, can be imported and sold in the United States without fear of violating the copyright owner's right to distribute or control of importation. The decision was 6 to 3.
Although there was already a "grey market" for foreign-made books in the United States, this case now makes it clear booksellers in the United States can freely sell foreign-made books in the United States (at least under copyright law). It remains to be seen whether publishers will lobby Congress to change the statute to eliminate this new rule.
