I used to be in the book business. We would constantly see students and other sellers try to pass off Indian editions as the regular edition, and charge full price.
When I was in college, I made the mistake of buying an Indian edition for a class, thinking it was the same. It had much less content and the problem sets were completely different. It ended up being unusable and I had to buy the regular edition.
> Kirtsaeng counter-argued that the first-sale doctrine rendered copyright no longer applicable
I remember before this case, books used to have a clause in its first page that resell or distribution is not allowed. So according to the first-sale doctrine, that clause has no enforceability?
I used to be in the book business. We would constantly see students and other sellers try to pass off Indian editions as the regular edition, and charge full price.
When I was in college, I made the mistake of buying an Indian edition for a class, thinking it was the same. It had much less content and the problem sets were completely different. It ended up being unusable and I had to buy the regular edition.
> Kirtsaeng counter-argued that the first-sale doctrine rendered copyright no longer applicable
I remember before this case, books used to have a clause in its first page that resell or distribution is not allowed. So according to the first-sale doctrine, that clause has no enforceability?
Yes, the US Supreme Court ruled it unenforceable in 2013:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirtsaeng_v._John_Wiley_%26_So....
But it was easy to find resellers ignoring those restrictions before. I got some expensive scientific books that way in 2004.
Not surprising at all considering overall lesser demand of printed material in addition to the decline in printing international editions.