That’s true. But the guy in this case was buying books in Thailand and reselling in the US for a profit. If he’s buying only a few no one will notice. What if thousands of foreign students start buying dozens or hundreds of textbooks each in their native country and resell them in the US?
Then the campus book stores notice the sales decreases. It’s another one of those things where if a very few do it no one notices. If it becomes large scale many will notice, including the book printer/copyright owner who sets the prices in all the countries involved.
Several things the articles doesn’t address, and maybe the court case didn’t address.
How many books can a foreign student bring into the US and resell without some sort of import license?
And how many can he sell at a given college without acquiring a business license?
Not enough information to know whether the guy was bringing in a few books, or enough to be considered an importer and then a retailer in the US.
But that’s not the ‘distribution channel’ the copyright owner planned on, and if it became too significant they’d have to make changes or lose significant profit.
If the free market is allowed to operate freely, then the campus book store will start getting its books from the foreign sources directly.
Then the bookseller will lower domestic prices and raise foreign prices to maximumize their own profits, in accordance with supply vs. demand economics.
Once domestic prices from the bookseller have dropped sufficiently, the campus book store will once again get its books from a domestic source, with the effect that Americans will pay less and foreigners will pay more.