Library Associations Brace for First Sale Fight with Owners’ Rights Lobby Effort; Library Journal, 10/23/12

Meredith Schwartz, Library Journal; Library Associations Brace for First Sale Fight with Owners’ Rights Lobby Effort: "The American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) today teamed up with 17 other associations, retailers, and charities to launch a new coalition called the Owners’ Rights Initiative (ORI). ORI is an “informal alliance of stakeholders” that will defend the first sale doctrine, which allows libraries to lend books and other materials, as well as individual owners to resell them. The doctrine is under attack in the case of Kirtsaeng vs. Wiley, for which the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on October 29. Among ORI’s other members are eBay, Overstock, Powell’s Books, textbook buyer and seller Chegg, movie rental company Redbox, Goodwill, and Quality King Distributors, which is notable as the prevailing party in Quality King Distributors v. L’anza Research International, in which the Supreme Court in 1998 held that the first sale doctrine prevents copyright owners from controlling the importation of copyrighted goods sold outside the United States. (Notable for its absence is Costco, which was a party to the split decision Costco v. Omega case that raised similar issues.)"