Strange alliances at the Supreme Court in copyright case
Supap Kirstaeg moved from Thailand to the US to study at Cornell. The textbooks that he needed for his courses were available at much lower prices in Thailand, so he had friends/relatives purchase a bunch of them in Thailand and send them to him in the US, where he then resold them. The publisher of the books sued him under the Copyright Act and Supap argued that his resale of the books was protected by the "first sale" doctrine (which allows someone who purchases a legitimate copy of a copyrighted work to resell it without the permission of the copyright owner). The publisher argued that the first sale doctrine doesn't apply to works purchased outside the United States.
The Supreme Court, reversing the court of appeals, ruled in favor of Supap and against the publisher. But what is interesting is the line-up of the Justices in the case.
The majority opinion was written by Breyer and joined by Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Sotomayor, and Kagan.
The dissent was written by Ginsberg, and joined by Kennedy and Scalia (in part).
This may seem strange at first, but its actually not that unusual. While there is a definite 5/4 split within the court on a lot of issues, on many others the dividing lines are very blurry.
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