BTW News Briefs

Supreme Court Rules Against Wiley in Imported Textbook Case

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Thai student who bought inexpensive foreign-edition textbooks and resold them to U.S. students on eBay. In the case brought by John Wiley & Sons, Supap Kirtsaeng, a former University of Southern California Ph.D. student, was accused of infringing on the publisher’s copyrights by selling cheaper Asian versions of textbooks, which were marked with warnings that they were intended for sale only in certain foreign regions.

In a 6-3 opinion, the court found that the “first sale” doctrine — if you buy a product, you have the right to resell it — applies even if the product was produced abroad. The ruling overturns the verdict of a New York jury that found Kirtsaeng guilty of willful copyright infringement and awarded Wiley $600,000 in damages.

In a dissenting opinion, “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the ruling ‘shrinks to insignificance’ publishers’ copyright protections against the unauthorized importation of foreign-made copies of copyrighted works,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

Ingram Publisher Services Adds Three Clients

Ingram Publisher Services has announced the addition of three new publisher clients: The Mother Company, Mandevilla Press, and The Law School Admission Council (LSAC).

“We are pleased to provide The Mother Company, Mandevilla Press, and LSAC with sales, marketing and distribution solutions to help them expand their presence and title reach in the market,” said Mark Ouimet, vice president and general manager, Ingram Publisher Services.

Sáenz Wins PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

The PEN/Faulkner Foundation has awarded the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction to Benjamin Alire Sáenz for his collection of short fiction Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club (Cinco Puntos Press). The winner was chosen from more than 350 novels and short story collections by American authors published in the U.S. during the 2012 calendar year.

Other finalists for this year’s award include Amelia Gray for her novel Threats (Farrar, Straus, Giroux); Laird Hunt, author of Kind One (Coffee House Press); T. Geronimo Johnson, author of Hold It ’Til It Hurts (Coffee House Press); and Thomas Mallon, author of Watergate (Pantheon). 

The winner and finalists will read at the 33rd Annual PEN/Faulkner Award Ceremony & Dinner on Saturday, May 4, at 7:00 p.m. at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Tickets are on sale now.