U.S. Sup. Ct.;
15-375
In Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 568 U. S. ___, this Court held that petitioner Supap Kirtsaeng could invoke the Copyright Act’s “first-sale doctrine,” see 17 U. S. C. §109(a), as a defense to the copyright infringement claim filed by textbook publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Having won his case, Kirtsaeng returned to the District Court to seek more than $2 million in attorney’s fees from Wiley under the Copyright Act’s fee-shifting provision. See §505. The District Court denied Kirtsaeng’s application because, it reasoned, imposing a fee award against a losing party that had taken reasonable positions during litigation (as Wiley had done) would not serve the Act’s purposes. Affirming, the Second Circuit held that the District Court was correct to place “substantial weight” on the reasonableness of Wiley’s position and that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the other factors did not outweigh the reasonableness finding.
