THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF LEGAL JOBS ON EARTH
LawCrossing Legal Daily News Feature
Supreme Court to Determine True Length of the Long Arm of Copyright On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would hear a case on an issue it failed to determine in 2010, namely whether U.S. copyright law applies to copies made and acquired abroad and then imported into the country.
04/17/12
to him in U.S. The student Supap Kirtsaeng, would then sell the textbooks on eBay to cover his education costs.
The legal issue will impact the ‘gray market’ where billions of dollars of trademark protected or copyrighted
Wiley & Sons sued Kirtsaeng in 2008 for copyright
goods are imported into U.S. via ‘alternative’ routes.
infringement, claiming a loss of $37000. A jury imposed damages of $75000 on the student for each
The decision would also test the reach of the first-sale
of the eight text books purported to have been sold by
doctrine of the Copyright Act by which the owner of a
him. The appeals court upheld the verdict.
lawfully made copy can sell or transfer the ownership of the goods without permissions of the original copyright
The Supreme Court would now hear the issue and
holder.
arguments during the next term in October.
The Supreme Court would be reviewing a judgment by
The student, Supap Kirtsaeng, came to the U.S. from
the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York that
Thailand in 1997, attended Cornell University, and then
held a foreign-made copy cannot be resold within the
was accepted into the PhD program for mathematics
United States without the original copyright owner’s
at the University of Southern California. No other
permission.
illegality or irregularity is known about the academically successful student who took the method of procuring
Previously, when the same issue came up before the
course textbooks from Thailand and selling them on
Supreme Court in a case between Costco and a Swatch
eBay to subsidize his education costs.
Group unit, the court was tied 4-4 and failed to say However, the instant case is not the face of the ‘gray
either yay or nay.
market’ where not students bent upon gathering living In the present case, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons,
costs, but large international corporations bent just
No. 11-697, before the Supreme Court, a Thai student
on profit, use the loopholes in copyright law to run a
had relatives purchase books printed in Asia by the
multibillion dollar market.
Asian subsidiary of John Wiley & Sons and send them
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