Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:36:00 -0400
Subject: [WSFA] Books & Copyright
From: Michael Walsh <walshmichaelj at gmail.com>
To: WSFA Official List <wsfa-forum at yahoogroups.com>, WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

"The US Supreme Court has handed down a verdict in Kirtsaeng v. John
Wiley & Sons, one of the most important copyright cases of the
century. In it, the publisher John Wiley & Sons sought to block the
import of legally purchased cheap overseas editions of its books by
arguing that "first sale" (the right to resell copyrighted works) only
applies to goods made in the USA. However you feel about cheap
overseas editions and their importation into the USA, this was a
disastrous legal theory. Practically everything owned by Americans is
made outside of the USA and almost all of it embodies some kind of
copyright. Under Wiley's theory, you would have no first-sale rights
to any of that stuff -- you couldn't sell it, you couldn't even give
it away."

And there's a skiffy connection at the end of the piece under UPDATE.

http://boingboing.net/2013/03/19/supreme-court-to-wiley-publish.html

mjw