Supreme Court Rules on Legal Fees in Copyright Cases; New York Times, 6/16/16

Adam Liptak, New York Times; Supreme Court Rules on Legal Fees in Copyright Cases:

"The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled that a Thai student who in 2013 won a copyright case involving imported textbooks should have another chance to persuade a lower court that the textbook’s publisher should pay his legal fees...

Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court, said whether the losing side’s position was objectively reasonable should play a major role in the analysis. But she said the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, and the district courts it supervises, may have placed nearly dispositive weight on that one factor.

Justice Kagan said other considerations — including motivation, deterrence and compensation — must also play a role in the analysis. But she appeared to suggest that the student, Supap Kirtsaeng, was unlikely to prevail under the correct standard."

Justices Weigh Case on Imported Textbooks; New York times, 10/29/12

Liptak, A., New York Times; Justices Weigh Case on Imported Textbooks: "The general rule for products made in the United States is that the owners of particular copies can do what they like with them. If you buy a book or record made in the United States, for instance, you are free to lend it or sell it as you wish. The question for the justices was whether that rule, called the first-sale doctrine, also applies when the works in question were made abroad. The answer turns on a phrase in the Copyright Act, which appears to limit the first-sale doctrine to works “lawfully made under this title.”... Much of the argument concerned what lawyers call the “parade of horribles” — the hypothetical problems that might follow a ruling in favor of one side or the other."