How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything
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Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything
#2Please read this for a more through discussion of the issue and applicable laws.
Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything
#3Good discussion of the same case here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4706572
There's a lot of FUD ("they might" "a ruling could") in this article. The short version is that this case deals with the fact that the Copyright Act prohibits unlicensed copying _and_ importing of copyrighted goods.[1] It comes up because (just like in the textbook case), it behooves a lot of manufacturers to charge a high price in the US and Western Europe and a lower price in the rest of the world. The price difference goes to cover things like research, writing, and other fixed costs that exist no matter how many marginal copies are sold.
The case deals only with the "gray market" importation question --- not what you do with your iPad that you bought in the US from Apple. There's no question (before or after this case) that if you buy an iPad in the US, the "first sale doctrine" still applies. Any copyright interest that Apple had in the device were terminated by their licensed sale to you in the US (even if the device was made in China, shipped directly from China, whatever). Nothing about this ruling would change that. Same for your DVD collection you bought from Amazon. Or any other product you bought in the US.
The only question raised by this case is if you wanted to fly to Manila, buy 1,000 textbooks at the Philippines price and then sell them in the US at the US price, could the textbook manufacturer claim that you imported unlicensed goods into the US?
There's a good economic analysis from the old thread: if the Court rules that publishers cannot prevent gray-market imports of textbooks that sell for $100 in the US but $20 in the Philippines, publishers aren't going to set the price to $20 in the US. They're just going to raise the price in the Philippines to $100 minus whatever it costs to ship from Manila to the US. Students in poor countries just get further screwed.
Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything
#4Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a " ... purchased outside the US" missing from the title of the piece?
The article says: "... seeking to knock out the "first sale" doctrine on goods made abroad" (emphasis mine) - surely a product made abroad, but sold in the US by an authorized importer/reseller will still be subject to first sale? And it would still be legal for students to buy books for themselves abroad? Even the example mentioned where US students buy books directly on Amazon UK doesn't seem to be affected - just their right to resell that book in the US?
It's still a big deal, but it seems that Ars is making it quite a bit bigger than it is.
Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything
#5Oh dear, how much linkbait are we going to have to go through with this case? Look, your first sale rights within the US are perfectly safe. This case only affects people who do bulk buys in an overseas market and then try to resell within the US. Claims that it will be impossible to sell anything without an exhaustive audit trail are absurdly overblown. The legal issue here is whether a company has the right to exert control over the distribution of its product.
The USSC will probably find for the publisher on public policy grounds (IMHO), since it would be difficult for publishers/manufacturers to execute agreements with distributors if it were not also prepared to go bat against unauthorized distributors. Not the most consumer-friendly situation since it allows producers to engage in market partition, but on the other hand exclusive distribution agreements are often the key to establishing a market presence in the first place. The arguments in Omega v. Costco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_S.A._v._Costco_Wholesale_...) are particularly instructive in this regard; amicus briefs in support of Costco offered long parades of horribles, but were built on absurd premises, such as speculation that courts would suddenly start interpreting statutory protections for libraries in direct contradiction of their plain meaning.
Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything
#6Good discussion of the same case here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4706572 There's a lot of FUD ("they might" "a ruling could") in this article. The short version is that this case deals with the fact that the Copyright Act prohibits unlicensed copying _and_ importing of copyrighted goods.[1] It comes up because (just like in the textbook case), it behooves a lot of manufacturers to charge a high price in the…
> There's a good economic analysis from the old thread: if the Court rules that publishers cannot prevent gray-market imports of textbooks that sell for $100 in the US but $20 in the Philippines, publishers aren't going to set the price to $20 in the US. They're just going to raise the price in the Philippines to $100 minus whatever it costs to ship from Manila to the US. Students in poor countries just get further screwed.
The problem with that is that they'd loose the PH market which presumably is worth >$0 to them.
An alternative strategy is to "edit" the foreign versions enough to make them unusable in the US, such as changing the homework questions enough that anyone working from the international version will get them wrong, or fiddle the fontsize/linespacing/margins so the page numbers are screwed up. That would automatically enlist the help of TAs to warn against the horrors of foreign books.
Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything
#7Whenever someone tells me that certain ruling only applies to X, and people worrying about Y are misguided, I almost always side with people who are worried about Y.
Court cases set a precedence, and there are unintended consequences for it. Given that a court cases are not 100% exploit-proof, you can bet your bottom dollar that eventually there will be some lawyer referring to previous rulings to justify some other rulings.
Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything
#8Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a " ... purchased outside the US" missing from the title of the piece? The article says: "... seeking to knock out the "first sale" doctrine on goods made abroad" (emphasis mine) - surely a product made abroad, but sold in the US by an authorized importer/reseller will still be subject to first sale? And it would still be legal for students to buy books for themselves abroad?…
If the ruling is narrow enough to allow the resale of goods purchased from the US that were imported under license, and forbid the resale of unlicensed imports; that would be one thing.
But... It won't necessarily be that narrow, and it is but one battle in a long war over who gets to control a good once it has been sold. It certainly would be possible for the Supreme Court to produce a ruling in this case that would see grandmothers being cuffed for illegal reselling at flea markets.
Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything
#9Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a " ... purchased outside the US" missing from the title of the piece? The article says: "... seeking to knock out the "first sale" doctrine on goods made abroad" (emphasis mine) - surely a product made abroad, but sold in the US by an authorized importer/reseller will still be subject to first sale? And it would still be legal for students to buy books for themselves abroad?…
It definitely looks like you're right, and that Ars seems to be misstating this. But I also agree, it's still a big deal. What industry hasn't attempted to get every inch out of law that they could, even if it's apparent they will eventually fail? It's in their financial interest to try, after all.
Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything
#10Good discussion of the same case here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4706572 There's a lot of FUD ("they might" "a ruling could") in this article. The short version is that this case deals with the fact that the Copyright Act prohibits unlicensed copying _and_ importing of copyrighted goods.[1] It comes up because (just like in the textbook case), it behooves a lot of manufacturers to charge a high price in the…
Where to begin... No, they are not raising the price in Philippines to $100 and loose the whole Philippine market. That bad economics 101, and bad business. What publishers will do is to have a select few articles with low price to be targeted for the Philippines market, and then use product differentials to push for higher cost products in the US. If you want to see a clear example of this, look at the car market.
The DVD collection from Amazon might be safe, might be unsafe. If your purchase produce tax revenue for somewhere in the USA, sure, it should be safe. Given how evasive some companies has been in regard to purchase location and taxes, it might be fully possible that those films was actually bought from a location at a tax heaven.
But more importantly, products bought in ebay is NOT located in the US. Any such product is likely to be unlawful. If the product include any form of software, art, or design, then that is copyrighted and you need to get permission from the copyright owner to import it to the US.
Last, cars. Cars and trucks are commonly sold on the international market, often through resellers. They might be produce, programmed, and created in Japan, Germany, Sweden, and then bought and directly imported to the US. Now, that importation will require additional permission. Say, you bought 1000 trucks from a reseller in Sweden and imported those to the US. Now all those are illegal. Imagine being a shipping company and suddenly realizing that all your purchased trucks are now illegal. Imagine the cost that can have.
This is why this is not about buying 1,000 textbooks at the Philippines price and then sell them in the US at the US price. It is the sudden realization that buying and importing goods can now come back and bite.