Expected Impact of Supreme Court First-Sale Ruling

The 6-3 decision was prompted by the case involving Supap Kirtsaeng, a Thai student who imported lower-priced textbooks from Thailand and resold them in the United States to help pay for his studies at Cornell University and the University of Southern California. Textbook publisher John Wiley & Sons sued, saying Kirtsaeng's unauthorized importation and sale of its books amounted to copyright infringement, and that the 'first-sale' doctrine ' under which people who buy something may resell it without permission ' does not apply because the books were produced overseas for sale overseas. 'This was the publishing industry's understanding of the law for at least three decades,' says Anderson Duff, an attorney with Wolf Greenfield. 'Everyone is pretty stunned.'

While copyright owners are still taking stock of Kirtsaeng's potential impact, lawyers say they expect their clients to make changes in light of the ruling. In the short term, they will have to decide whether to continue to sell overseas for lower prices ' a move they initially made in part to discourage counterfeiters who might otherwise try to compete. Or they may consider raising U.S. prices temporarily to recoup losses resulting from unexpected imports.