Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/11-697_d1o2.pdf
Page Number: 46.0

Cite as:  568 U. S. ____ (2013) 

5 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

to an action under §106(3), if there was a distribution
of the copies).”  Id., at 148. 

As the District Court and the Court of Appeals concluded, 
see  654  F. 3d  210,  221–222  (CA2  2011);  App.  to  Pet.  for 
Cert. 70a–73a, application of the Quality King analysis to
the  facts  of  this  case  would  preclude  any  invocation  of
§109(a).  Petitioner  Supap  Kirtsaeng  imported  and  then
sold  at  a  profit  over  600  copies  of  copyrighted  textbooks 
printed outside the United States by the Asian subsidiary
of  respondent  John  Wiley  &  Sons,  Inc.  (Wiley).  App.  29–
34.  See  also  ante,  at  3–5  (opinion  of  the  Court).    In  the 
words the Court used in Quality King, these copies “were
‘lawfully  made’  not  under  the  United  States  Copyright
Act,  but  instead,  under  the  law  of  some  other  country.”
523  U. S.,  at  147.    Section  109(a)  therefore  does  not  ap- 
ply, and Kirtsaeng’s unauthorized importation constitutes 
copyright infringement under §602(a)(1). 

The Court does not deny that under the language I have
quoted  from  Quality  King,  Wiley  would  prevail.  Ante,  at 
27.  Nevertheless,  the  Court  dismisses  this  language,  to
which  all  Members  of  the  Quality  King  Court  subscribed, 
as ill-considered dictum.  Ante, at 27–28.  I agree that the
discussion was dictum in the sense that it was not essen­
tial to the Court’s judgment.  See Quality King, 523 U. S., 
at  154  (GINSBURG,  J.,  concurring)  (“[W]e  do  not  today 
resolve  cases  in  which  the  allegedly  infringing  imports 
were  manufactured  abroad.”).    But  I  disagree  with  the 
Court’s  conclusion  that  this  dictum  was  ill  considered. 
Instead,  for  the  reasons  explained  below,  I  would  hold, 
consistently  with  Quality  King’s  dictum,  that  §602(a)(1) 
authorizes  a  copyright  owner  to  bar  the  importation  of  a 
copy manufactured abroad for sale abroad. 

II 
The  text  of  the  Copyright  Act  demonstrates  that  Con­
gress  intended  to  provide  copyright  owners  with  a  potent