Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/11-697_d1o2.pdf
Page Number: 68.0

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

27 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

as  a  statutory  bulwark  against  courts  deviating  from 
Bobbs-Merrill  in  a  way  that  increases  copyright  owners’ 
control  over  downstream  distribution,  and  legislative
history  indicates  that  is  precisely  the  role  Congress  in­
tended  §109(a)  to  play.    Congress  first  codified  the  first 
sale doctrine in §41 of the Copyright Act of 1909, 35 Stat. 
1084.21    It  did  so,  the  House  Committee  Report  on  the
1909  Act  explains,  “in  order  to  make  . . .  clear  that  [Con­
gress  had]  no  intention  [of]  enlarg[ing]  in  any  way  the 
construction  to  be  given  to  the  word  ‘vend.’ ”    H. R.  Rep. 
No. 2222, 60th Cong., 2d Sess., 19 (1909).  According to the
Committee Report, §41 was “not intended to change [exist­
ing law] in any way.”  Ibid.  The position I have stated and 
explained  accords  with  this  expression  of  congressional 
intent.  In  enacting  §41  and  its  successors,  I  would  hold,
Congress did not “change . . . existing law,” ibid., by strip­
ping the word “vend” (and thus its substitute “distribute”)
of the limiting construction imposed in Bobbs-Merrill. 

In any event, the reading of the Copyright Act to which
I  subscribe  honors  Congress’  aim  in  enacting  §109(a) 
while  the  Court’s  reading  of  the  Act  severely  diminishes 
§602(a)(1)’s role.  See  supra, at 10–12.  My  position in no 
way  tugs  against  the  principle  underlying  §109(a)—i.e., 
that  certain  conduct  by  the  copyright  owner  exhausts  the 

—————— 

States with the copyright owner’s permission, not when it is distributed 
abroad.  But under §109(a), as interpreted in Quality King, any author­
ized distribution of a U. S.-made copy, even a distribution occurring in 
a  foreign  country,  exhausts  the  copyright  owner’s  distribution  right 
under  §106(3).    See  523  U. S.,  at  145,  n. 14.    Section  109(a)  therefore 
provides for exhaustion in a circumstance not reached by Bobbs-Merrill. 
21 Section 41 of the 1909 Act provided: “[N]othing in this Act shall be
deemed  to  forbid,  prevent,  or  restrict  the  transfer  of  any  copy  of  a 
copyrighted work the possession of which has been lawfully obtained.”
35 Stat. 1084.  This language was repeated without material change in
§27  of  the  Copyright  Act  of  1947,  61  Stat.  660.    As  noted  above,  see 
supra,  at  2,  17  U. S. C.  §109(a)  sets  out  the  current  codification  of  the 
first sale doctrine.