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Page Number: 71

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KIRTSAENG v. JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC. 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

license  (to  the  extent  that  express  licenses  do  not  exist) 
would likely permit the car to be resold without the copy­
right owners’ authorization.25 

Most  telling  in  this  regard,  no  court,  it  appears,  has
been  called  upon  to  answer  any  of  the  Court’s  “horribles”
in  an  actual  case.    Three  decades  have  passed  since  a
federal court first published an opinion reading §109(a) as
applicable exclusively to copies made in the United States.
See Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Scorpio Music 
Distributors,  Inc.,  569  F. Supp.  47,  49  (ED  Pa.  1983), 
summarily  aff ’d,  738  F. 2d  424  (CA3  1984)  (table).    Yet 
Kirtsaeng  and  his  supporting  amici  cite  not  a  single  case
in which the owner of a consumer good authorized for sale 
in the United States has been sued for copyright infringe­
ment after reselling the item or giving it away as a gift or
to  charity.    The  absence  of  such  lawsuits  is  unsurprising. 
Routinely suing one’s customers is hardly a best business 

—————— 

25 Principles  of  fair  use  and  implied  license  may  also  allow  a  U. S.
tourist “who buys a copyrighted work of art, a poster, or . . . a bumper
sticker” abroad to publicly “display it in America without the copyright 
owner’s further authorization.”  Ante, at 15.  (The tourist could lawfully
bring the work of art, poster, or bumper sticker into the United States
under 17 U. S. C. §602(a)(3)(B), which provides that §602(a)(1)’s impor­
tation  ban  does  not  apply  to  “importation  . . .  by  any  person  arriving
from  outside  the  United  States  . . .  with  respect  to  copies  . . .  forming 
part  of  such  person’s  personal  baggage.”).    Furthermore,  an  individual 
clearly would not incur liability for infringement merely by displaying a
foreign-made poster or other artwork in her home.  See §106(5) (grant­
ing the owners of copyrights in “literary, musical, dramatic, and chore­
ographic  works,  pantomimes,  and  pictorial,  graphic,  or  sculptural 
works”  the  exclusive  right  “to  display  the  copyrighted  work  publicly” 
(emphasis added)).  See also §101 (a work is displayed “publicly” if it is
displayed  “at  a  place  open  to  the  public  or  at  any  place  where  a  sub­
stantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its 
social  acquaintances  is  gathered”  (emphasis  added)).    Cf.  2  Nimmer 
§8.14[C][1],  at 8–192.2(1)  (“[A]  performance  limited  to  members  of 
the  family  and  invited  guests  is  not  a  public  performance.”  (footnote 
omitted)).