Supreme Court to Rule on Connection Between Imports and Copyright
Whether copyrighted works obtained legally abroad can be imported into the U.S. without their owners' "authority" will be judged by the Supreme Court, which granted cert Monday to Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons. The 2nd, 3rd and 9th U.S.…
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circuit courts of appeal have issued varying opinions on the relationship between Copyright Act Section 602(a)(1), which requires owner authority for import, and the first-sale doctrine codified in Section 109(a), which allows resale of copies "lawfully made" without an owner's permission (See ITT Online Archives [Ref. 12041667]). The Supreme Court failed to decide the same question in a 2010 case, Costco v. Omega, concerning the resale of imported foreign watches, deadlocking 4-4 without the participation of Justice Elena Kagan, who had taken part in the case as U.S. solicitor general.