Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/11-697_d1o2.pdf
Page Number: 34.0

30 

KIRTSAENG v. JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC. 

Opinion of the Court 

“lawfully  made  under  this  title.”    And  neither  the  report
nor  its  accompanying  1960’s  draft  answers  the  question
before us here.  Cf. Quality King, 523 U. S., at 145 (with­
out those five words, the import clause, via its reference to
§106, imports the “first sale” doctrine). 

But  to  ascertain  the  best  reading  of  §109(a),  rather 
than  dissecting  the  remarks  of  industry  representatives
concerning  §602  at  congressional  meetings  held  10  years
before  the  statute  was  enacted,  see  post,  at  13–16,  we 
would  give  greater  weight  to  the  congressional  report
accompanying  §109(a),  written  a  decade  later  when  Con­
gress passed the new law.  That report says: 

“Section  109(a)  restates  and  confirms  the  principle 

that, where the copyright owner has transferred own­
ership  of  a  particular  copy  or  phonorecord  of  a  work, 
the person to whom the copy or phonorecord is trans­
ferred is entitled to dispose of it by sale, rental, or any 
other  means.  Under  this  principle,  which  has  been
established by the court decisions and . . . the present 
law,  the  copyright  owner’s  exclusive  right  of  public 
distribution  would  have  no  effect  upon  anyone  who 
owns ‘a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made
under  this  title’  and  who  wishes  to  transfer  it  to 
someone else or to destroy it. 

.

.

.

.

. 

“To  come  within  the  scope  of  section  109(a),  a  copy
or phonorecord must have been ‘lawfully made under
this  title,’  though  not  necessarily  with  the  copyright
owner’s authorization.  For example, any resale of an
illegally  ‘pirated’  phonorecord  would  be  an  infringe­
ment  but  the  disposition  of  a  phonorecord  legally 
made  under  the  compulsory  licensing  provisions  of
section 115 would not.”  H. R. Rep. No. 94–1476, at 79 
(emphasis added).