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KIRTSAENG v. JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC. 

Syllabus 

exclusive right to distribute and §602’s import prohibition.  Kirtsaeng
replied that because his books were “lawfully made” and acquired le-
gitimately,  §109(a)’s  “first  sale”  doctrine  permitted  importation  and
resale  without  Wiley’s  further  permission.   The  District  Court  held 
that  Kirtsaeng  could  not  assert  this  defense  because  the  doctrine 
does  not  apply  to  goods  manufactured  abroad.    The  jury  then  found
that  Kirtsaeng  had  willfully  infringed  Wiley’s  American  copyrights 
and assessed damages.  The Second Circuit affirmed, concluding that
§109(a)’s “lawfully made under this title” language indicated that the 
“first sale” doctrine does not apply to copies of American copyrighted 
works manufactured abroad. 

Held: The  “first  sale”  doctrine  applies  to  copies  of  a  copyrighted  work

lawfully made abroad.  Pp. 7–33.

(a)   Wiley  reads  “lawfully  made  under  this  title”  to  impose  a  geo-
graphical limitation that prevents §109(a)’s doctrine from applying to
Wiley Asia’s  books.  Kirtsaeng, however, reads the phrase as impos-
ing the non-geographical limitation made “in accordance with” or “in
compliance with” the Copyright Act, which would permit the doctrine
to  apply  to  copies  manufactured  abroad  with  the  copyright  owner’s 
permission.  Pp. 7–8.

(b) Section  109(a)’s  language,  its  context,  and  the  “first  sale”  doc-

trine’s common-law history favor Kirtsaeng’s reading.  Pp. 8–24.

(1) Section  109(a)  says  nothing  about  geography.    “Under”  can 
logically  mean  “in  accordance  with.”    And  a  nongeographical  inter-
pretation provides each word in the phrase “lawfully made under this 
title”  with  a  distinct  purpose:  “lawfully  made”  suggests  an  effort  to 
distinguish copies that were made lawfully from those that were not, 
and  “under  this  title”  sets  forth  the  standard  of  “lawful[ness]”  (i.e., 
the  U. S.  Copyright  Act).    This  simple  reading  promotes  the  tradi-
tional  copyright  objective  of  combatting  piracy  and  makes  word-by-
word linguistic sense.  

In contrast, the geographical interpretation bristles with linguistic
difficulties.  Wiley first reads  “under” to mean  “in conformance with 
the Copyright Act where the Copyright Act is applicable.”  Wiley then
argues that the Act “is applicable” only in the United States.  Howev-
er, neither “under” nor any other word in “lawfully made under this
title” means “where.”  Nor can a geographical limitation be read into 
the  word  “applicable.”    The  fact  that  the  Act  does  not  instantly  pro-
tect  an  American  copyright  holder  from  unauthorized  piracy  taking 
place  abroad  does  not  mean  the  Act  is  inapplicable  to  copies  made
abroad.  Indeed, §602(a)(2) makes foreign-printed pirated copies sub-
ject to the Copyright Act.  And §104 says that works “subject to pro-
tection” include unpublished works “without regard to the [author’s]
nationality  or  domicile,”  and  works  “first  published”  in  any  of  the