American Library, Library Copyright Alliance Statement on the Supreme Court’s Decision in Kirtsaeng v. Wiley
Total Victory for Libraries and Their Users
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In his defense, Kirtsaeng invoked a principle known as the “first sale doctrine”: a lawful owner of a lawful copy of a copyrighted work can generally do whatever she wants with that copy—resell, lend, donate, and even destroy it—without asking permission from the copyright holder. To put it another way, the author’s right to control a particular copy of her work ends after the first sale. The first sale doctrine is especially important to libraries, whose primary activity throughout history has been to buy copies of works and make them available to their communities by lending.
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