The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) has filed an amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court of the US in support of petitioner Costco Wholesale Corporation in a lawsuit filed against Costco by luxury watch manufacturer Omega. The LCA comprises the American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL).
Omega claims Costco infringed its copyrights by importing authentic Omega watches from abroad rather than buying them from the US distributor at a higher price. LCA believes this case could diminish the legal provision that allows libraries to lend books.
The 'first-sale doctrine' is the exception to the Copyright Act that allows any purchaser of a legal copy of a book or other copyrighted work to sell or lend that copy. However, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the first-sale doctrine applied only to copies manufactured in the US. In its friend of the court brief, LCA has asked the Supreme Court to reverse the Ninth Circuit Court's decision and apply the first-sale doctrine to all copies manufactured with the lawful authorisation of the holder of a work's US copyright.
How the Supreme Court interprets the first-sale doctrine could determine the extent to which libraries can continue to lend books and other materials manufactured abroad to the public.
The LCA asserts that this case is critically important to libraries and their users because a significant portion of US library collections consist of resources that were manufactured overseas. More than 200 million books in US libraries have foreign publishers. Additionally, many books published by US publishers were actually printed in other countries, and often these books do not indicate where they were printed. If a book does not specify that it was printed in the US, a library would not know whether it could lend it without being exposed to a copyright lawsuit.
LCA believes it is critically important for the court to recognise the impact this case could have on library services to the public and to consider possible solutions. A PDF version of the amicus brief is available online at http://www.librarycopyrightalliance.org/bm~doc/lca-costco-amicus.pdf.
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