First sale doctrine survives US Supreme Court
Books are still property
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Dead tree books have kept one of their few advantages over e-books, with the US Supreme Court upholding the first sale doctrine, which states that the publisher's exclusivity over a book ends with its purchase.
The case was brought by John Wiley & Sons against Thai student Supap Kirtsaeng, who had noticed that textbooks in his home country were so much cheaper than in the US that he could create a sideline getting relatives to buy the books and send them to him in America for resale on eBay.
Wiley had previously and successfully argued in lower courts that the first sale doctrine only applied to books that were printed on America's shores, and that Kirtsaeng was therefore violating its exclusive license to import the books. As The Register previously noted, the US Supreme Court action reached far beyond books, since it was relevant to all copyright works.
In its 74-page judgement (PDF), the court has decided 6-3 that Kirtsaeng is, indeed, protected by the first sale doctrine.
The judges decided that Section 109 of the US Copyright Act do not impose geographical limitations on the doctrine: the textbooks in question were legally printed, albeit beyond America's borders, under license from Wiley. By contrast, the judgement states, “The geographical interpretation bristles with linguistic difficulties … Indeed, §602(a)(2) makes foreign-printed pirated copies subject to the Copyright Act.”
In the majority ruling, Justice Stephen Breyer noted that accepting the contrary argument, that Wiley could assert different rights over a book printed outside the US, “could prevent a buyer from domestically selling or even giving away copies of a video game made in Japan, a film made in Germany or a dress (with a design copyright) made in China.”
In an argument that will raise a bitter laugh from non-US buyers of products like business software, games and computers, Wiley had put forward an altruistic argument to support its right to enforce geographical rights over its books: without a decision in its favour, it would be unable to supply cheap books to developing countries.
Deciding in favour of Wiley, the court said, would mean “a publisher such as Wiley would be free to print its books abroad, allow their importation and sale within the United States, but prohibit students from later selling their used texts at a campus bookstore.”
The Register notes that this decision has no particular relevance to resale of purely digital content, such as is being fought in the ReDigi case. Digital content is only ever "sold" under license, which gives the vendor much more power than is conferred under copyright. ®
COMMENTS
it's about time the global market worked for the customers as well as the megacorps
by all means offshore your jobs to India and China, but don't then whinge when I buy cheap goods from there
Possesion is 9 tenths of the law
If you don't hold a physical copy, you're not doing it right.
Re: Do my eyes deceive me?
"I predict years of expensive court room battles over this, after all that's the American dream in the 21c isn't it?"
In which court rooms? The supremer court? The fajita supreme with cheese court? Tennis court?
El Reg: Where an article discussing an eminently sensible decision by the supreme court results in comments from people implying that the decision will be overturned, and mocking Americans on that basis.
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider
