## Facts

- Supap Kirtsaeng, a Thai citizen studying in the United States, arranged for family members to buy lower-priced foreign edition English-language textbooks abroad and ship them to him for resale in the United States.
- The publisher sued for copyright infringement based on importation and distribution rights; Kirtsaeng invoked the first-sale doctrine.
- The Supreme Court previously held that the first-sale doctrine applies to copies lawfully made abroad.
- After prevailing on the merits, Kirtsaeng sought more than $2 million in attorney’s fees under 17 U.S.C. § 505.
- The district court denied fees, emphasizing that the publisher’s litigation position had been reasonable.
- The court of appeals affirmed, approving substantial weight for objective reasonableness in the fee analysis.
- The Supreme Court granted review to clarify the proper approach to attorney’s fees under § 505 in light of its prior guidance.

## Issues

1. When awarding attorney’s fees to a prevailing party under 17 U.S.C. § 505, what weight should a court give to the objective reasonableness of the losing party’s position?
2. Must courts give special or controlling weight to whether the litigation clarified important, previously unsettled copyright law?

## Decision

- The Court vacated the judgment and remanded.
- A district court deciding fees under § 505 should give substantial weight to the objective reasonableness of the losing party’s position.
- Objective reasonableness is not controlling; courts must still consider all other relevant circumstances.
- The Court rejected a rule that would give special or controlling weight to a case’s value in clarifying unsettled law.
- Remand was appropriate because the lower courts may have treated objective reasonableness as effectively dispositive and may not have appreciated the full scope of discretion to award fees when other factors warrant it.

## Legal Principles

- Section 505 confers discretionary authority to award a reasonable attorney’s fee to the prevailing party; courts may not apply rigid rules or automatic fee awards.
- Courts must treat prevailing plaintiffs and prevailing defendants evenhandedly.
- In exercising discretion, courts may consider nonexclusive factors including frivolousness, motivation, objective unreasonableness (legal and factual), and the need for compensation and deterrence.
- Objective reasonableness deserves substantial weight because it tends to encourage parties with strong positions to litigate and discourages weak claims or defenses, but it does not create a presumption for or against fees.
- Courts may award fees despite a reasonable losing position when other circumstances (e.g., misconduct, bad faith, deterrence, or compensation needs) justify an award, and may deny fees even when the losing position was unreasonable.

## Conclusion

The Court clarified that attorney’s fees under 17 U.S.C. § 505 require a flexible, case-specific analysis that substantially weights objective reasonableness without making it dispositive, and it rejected a special rule favoring fee awards based on a case’s law-clarifying effect; the fee denial was vacated for reconsideration under that standard.


Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 579 U.S. 197 (2016)