This issue, organized by Editorial Board member Aaron Panner, dives deeply into a recent Supreme Court decision—Kirtsaeng. Our authors explore the numerous features posed by what may initially look like a simple copyright question. Among the questions asked—and answered—are: Should the exhaustion of U.S. rights depend on the exercise of foreign rights alone? How widespread […]

Ariel Lavinbuk, May 28, 2013 In Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons Inc., the Supreme Court held that the Copyright Act’s first-sale doctrine applies to all copies of a copyrighted work made by or with the authorization of the U.S. copyright owner, regardless of where those copies were made. That means that genuine copies made and […]

Brian Willen, May 28, 2013 For hundreds of years, the “first sale” doctrine has been central to copyright law. It helps reconcile a fundamental tension between copyright owners’ ability to exploit their creative expressions and property owners’ right to control their own property. While copyright, as Lord Mansfield explained, is “a property in notion, and […]

John Villasenor, May 28, 2013 In 1908, the Supreme Court articulated the first sale doctrine, holding inBobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus that a copyright owner’s “right to vend” did not include the right “to control all future retail sales.” The doctrine was codified in the Copyright Act of 1909 and again in §109(a) of the Copyright Act of […]

Aaron Panner, May 28, 2013 In Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., the Supreme Court decided by a 6-3 margin that the “first sale” doctrine, codified at 17 U.S.C. 109(a), applies to legitimate copies that are made and sold overseas for distribution overseas. Accordingly, despite the prohibition on unauthorized importation of copies acquired abroad, contained in […]

Scott Hemphill, Jeannie Suk, May 28, 2013 Earlier this year, in an important copyright ruling, the Supreme Court dropped a puzzling clue about copyright for designs that merits examination. In an opinion authored by Justice Breyer, the Court’s foremost copyright scholar, the Court posited a “design copyright” for a “dress” made in China and then […]

Jonathan Cheng, Adam Eckart, Deidre Johnson, Simone Waterbury, May 28, 2013 In August 2011, the Hart-Scott-Rodino premerger rules and form received their second major overhaul since the enactment of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (the “HSR Act”). While the rule changes did not impact the reportability of transactions, they altered a filer’s necessary […]