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The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in John Wiley & Sons Inc v. Supap Kirtsaeng that Kirtsaeng, a Thai man studying in the United States, infringed upon John Wiley & Sons’ copyrights when he had his family send him cheaper foreign editions of Wiley textbooks, printed by Wiley Asia, that he then resold on eBay for a profit. His PayPal account showed revenues of $1.2 million.

Kirtsaeng has argued that the first sale doctrine gave him the right to resell the textbooks, but the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled against this argument in October 2009 and awarded John Wiley $600,000 in statutory damages. The Second Circuit upheld this decision this week.