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the Legal Blurb Blog
The latest legal news and commentary from a conservative perspective.
The Court met on October 12 for their usual Friday Conference, and we expect to hear orders today and tomorrow. There is a chance we can hear whether they will take up any of the marriage cases. We will have an update for you as soon as we hear. Be sure to check back often.
The Court is out for the next two weeks. They will convene back on October 26 for their Friday Conference and will then hear arguments the following week (Oct. 29-31).
One interesting case you might be hearing about in the next few days, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, pertains to the reselling of copyrighted material obtained abroad. Under the Copyright Act, “it is impermissible to import a work ‘without the authority of the owner’ of the copyright. But the first-sale doctrine allows the owner of a copy to sell or otherwise dispose of the copy without the copyright owner’s permission.”
The case involves a Thai student who came to America to study at Cornell University and realized that textbooks published by Wiley & Sons were being sold cheaper in his homeland. So he got his relatives in Thailand to buy copies of the books and ship them to him in America. He then turned around and sold them on eBay, where he made “upward of $1.2 million.” The Court will decide whether he did so in violation of the Copyright Act.