Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/11-697_d1o2.pdf
Page Number: 40.0

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

3 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

stream  liability  on  those  who  purchase  and  resell  in  the 
United  States  copies  that  happen  to  have  been  manu- 
factured abroad.  In other words, that outcome would tar-
get  unauthorized  importers  alone,  and  not  the  “libraries, 
used-book  dealers,  technology  companies,  consumer-goods
retailers,  and  museums”  with  whom  the  Court  today  is 
rightly  concerned.  Ante,  at  19.
  Assuming  Congress
adopted  §602(a)(1)  to  permit  market  segmentation,  I  sus- 
pect  that  is  how  Congress  thought  the  provision  would
work—not by removing first-sale protection from every copy
manufactured abroad (as John Wiley urges us to do here),
but  by  enabling  the  copyright  holder  to  control  imports 
even when the first-sale doctrine applies (as Quality King 
now prevents).2 

At  bottom,  John  Wiley  (together  with  the  dissent)  asks 
us  to  misconstrue  §109(a)  in  order  to  restore  §602(a)(1)
to  its  purportedly  rightful  function  of  enabling  copyright 
holders  to  segment  international  markets.    I  think  John 
Wiley  may  have  a  point  about  what  §602(a)(1)  was  de-
signed  to  do;  that  gives  me  pause  about  Quality  King’s 
holding  that  the  first-sale  doctrine  limits  the  importation
ban’s  scope.  But  the  Court  today  correctly  declines  the 
—————— 

2 Indeed, allowing the copyright owner to restrict imports irrespective
of  the  first-sale  doctrine—i.e.,  reversing  Quality  King—would  yield  a 
far more sensible scheme of market segmentation than would adopting
John Wiley’s argument here.  That is because only the former approach 
turns on the intended market for copies; the latter rests instead on their 
place  of  manufacture.  To  see  the  difference,  imagine  that  John  Wiley
prints  all  its  textbooks  in  New  York,  but  wants  to  distribute  certain
versions only in Thailand.  Without Quality King, John Wiley could do 
so—i.e.,  produce  books  in  New  York,  ship  them  to  Thailand,  and  pre-
vent  anyone  from  importing  them  back  into  the  United  States.    But 
with Quality King, that course is not open to John Wiley even under its 
reading  of  §109(a):  To  prevent  someone  like  Kirtsaeng  from  re-
importing the books—and so to segment the Thai market—John Wiley 
would  have  to  move  its  printing  facilities  abroad.    I  can  see  no  reason 
why  Congress  would  have  conditioned  a  copyright  owner’s  power  to
divide markets on outsourcing its manufacturing to a foreign country.