The article linked to does not appear to assist with a clear understanding of the issues. I hope the lawyers in the case do better.

Copyright is territorial (although international conventions limit disparities in national copyright laws). That is to say, US copyright law applies in the USA, and, for example, Canadian copyright law in Canada, and UK copyright law in the UK, French in France and so on. Indeed in some respects even within the USA copyright law can differ from state to state - although Federal pre-emption applies to matter within the ambit of US copyright statute, where state law applies to other things pre-emption may not apply. An example used to be (I'm not sure if it still pertains) that Californian common-law copyright extended to works that had not been reduced to a material form, for example a melody whistled but never written down nor recorded.

FIRST STRAND

Most countries' copyright laws extend in general to copying (ie making a copy) and also to importation. On the face of this the importation of an item brought abroad requires a licence from the copyright owner. In the UK (with the law of which I am more familiar) this is largely covered by sections 17, 22, and 27 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 as amended.

S. 22 reads "he copyright in a work is infringed by a person who, without the licence of the copyright owner, imports into the United Kingdom, otherwise than for his private and domestic use, an article which is, and which he knows or has reason to believe is, an infringing copy of the work." S 27 is longer but defines "infringing copy" - and the key point is that an item is for this purpose an "infringing copy" on the basis of a juridical fiction - namely that is is "made" at the place of importation.

So the student could bring in his own copies for his own use (if he were doing this in the UK) but not run a business.

Now although copyright is divisible (in the UK) so that for example on e person might own copyright in Kent and another in Hertfordshire (or less controversially one in England and one in Wales) the importation rules only apply to importation into the UK.


SECOND STRAND.

We don't have what the US calls "the first sale doctrine" as such. I have some idea about it but ought really to leave comment mostly to one of the US lawyers who occasionally turn up here.


THIRD STRAND

A copyright licence may extend to all or some of the acts restricted by copyright. If no fresh copy is made (or no "importation" occurs) the copyright licence as such is irrelevant. It may contain collateral terms, but these are matters of contract not copyright. If a book said inside its flyleaf "This book may not be re-sold" that might (if the first owner had knowledge of the term and accepted it at purchase - rather as in a computer shrink-wrap licence) bind the first owner - but a second owner is not in contractual relations with the first owner so the doctrine of privity prevents him being bound as such. Dunlop (the tyre company) tried hard to make its resale price maintenance provisions stick in the UK courts in the early-ish 1900s but failed because of this and one of the very few useful things Thatcher did was generally abolish resale price maintenance - but not (at first) in the book trade).


FOURTH STRAND

Computers differ. A computer program is reproduced when it is loaded. So possibly shrink-wrap licences may affect a second owner of a computer disk. Very likely this train of thought may apply to e-books. Moral - when getting an e-book, download it and make a backup copy. If your e-book is in the cloud you are at risk!



Now that I have tried to separate the arguments, carry on chaps, this is interesting. It would be great fun if anyone could find reports of the US decisions so far.