140
Opinion of the Court
subsequent distribution of those products bearing copyrighted labels violated L'anza's "exclusive rights under 17 U. S. C. §§ 106, 501 and 602 to reproduce and distribute the copyrighted material in the United States." App. 32. The District Court rejected petitioner's defense based on the "first sale" doctrine recognized by § 109 and entered summary judgment in favor of L'anza. Based largely on its conclusion that § 602 would be "meaningless" if § 109 provided a defense in a case of this kind, the Court of Appeals affirmed. 98 F. 3d 1109, 1114 (CA9 1996). Because its decision created a conflict with the Third Circuit, see Sebastian Int'l, Inc. v. Consumer Contacts (PTY) Ltd., 847 F. 2d 1093 (1988), we granted the petition for certiorari. 520 U. S. 1250 (1997).
II
This is an unusual copyright case because L'anza does not claim that anyone has made unauthorized copies of its copyrighted labels. Instead, L'anza is primarily interested in protecting the integrity of its method of marketing the products to which the labels are affixed. Although the labels themselves have only a limited creative component, our interpretation of the relevant statutory provisions would apply equally to a case involving more familiar copyrighted materials such as sound recordings or books. Indeed, we first endorsed the first sale doctrine in a case involving a claim by a publisher that the resale of its books at discounted prices infringed its copyright on the books. Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus, 210 U. S. 339 (1908).4
In that case, the publisher, Bobbs-Merrill, had inserted a notice in its books that any retail sale at a price under
4 The doctrine had been consistently applied by other federal courts in earlier cases. See Kipling v. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 120 F. 631, 634 (CA2 1903); Doan v. American Book Co., 105 F. 772, 776 (CA7 1901); Harrison v. Maynard, Merrill & Co., 61 F. 689, 691 (CA2 1894); Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Snellenburg, 131 F. 530, 532 (ED Pa. 1904); Clemens v. Estes, 22 F. 899, 900 (Mass. 1885); Stowe v. Thomas, 23 F. Cas. 201, 206-207 (ED Pa. 1853).
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