## Facts

- L’anza Research International, Inc., a California hair-care manufacturer, sold products in the United States through authorized distributors and retailers and maintained higher domestic prices than foreign prices.
- L’anza’s products bore copyrighted labels.
- L’anza’s United Kingdom distributor sold large quantities of L’anza products to a distributor in Malta.
- Quality King Distributors, Inc. purchased those goods from the Maltese distributor, imported them into the United States without L’anza’s permission, and resold them at discounted prices to unauthorized retailers.
- L’anza sued under the Copyright Act, alleging infringement of its distribution rights and unlawful importation, relying on 17 U.S.C. §§ 106(3), 501, and 602(a).
- The district court rejected Quality King’s § 109(a) first-sale defense and granted summary judgment to L’anza.
- The Ninth Circuit affirmed, reasoning that allowing § 109(a) as a defense would render § 602(a) ineffective.
- The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve disagreement among circuits about the relationship between § 109(a) and § 602(a).

## Issues

1. Whether the first-sale doctrine in 17 U.S.C. § 109(a) applies to copies imported into the United States.
2. Whether 17 U.S.C. § 602(a) allows a copyright owner to bar importation of copies that were lawfully made in the United States, sold abroad, and then reimported.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously reversed.
- The Court held that § 109(a)’s first-sale doctrine applies to imported copies in this “round-trip” scenario.
- Because § 602(a) defines importation as an infringement of the § 106(3) distribution right, and § 109(a) limits that distribution right after an authorized first sale, § 602(a) is subject to § 109(a) for these copies.
- The Court rejected the view that this reading makes § 602(a) superfluous, explaining that § 602(a) still applies where the importer is not an “owner” of the copy, there has been no authorized first sale, or the copy was not “lawfully made under” U.S. copyright law.
- Justice Ginsburg concurred, emphasizing the limited scope: the case involved copies made in the United States, sold abroad, and then reimported.

## Legal Principles

- The first-sale doctrine in § 109(a) exhausts the copyright owner’s § 106(3) distribution right as to a particular copy “lawfully made under this title” after an authorized first sale.
- Section 602(a)’s importation prohibition is not an independent distribution right; it operates through § 106(3) and therefore is constrained by § 109(a)’s limitation.
- For copies manufactured in the United States under U.S. copyright law, exported, and later reimported, the copyright owner may not invoke § 602(a) to prevent the owner of those copies from importing and reselling them.

## Conclusion

The Court held that, for copies lawfully made in the United States and sold with the copyright owner’s authorization, § 109(a) permits the copy owner to resell and reimport those copies, and § 602(a) cannot be used to block that reimportation.


Quality King Distribs., Inc. v. L’anza Rsch. Int’l, Inc., 523 U.S. 135 (1998)