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How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything

arstechnica.com

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Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything

#31

Post by jeremyjh »

olefoo wrote: post #8
mseebach wrote: post #4

Correct 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…

It absolutely is that "narrow". Goods you buy from an authorized distributor are fair game for resale.

Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything

#32

Post by belorn »

tomp wrote: post #25
Nursie wrote: post #23

This whole area of law annoys me. Globalisation has meant that some companies can shop around the entire globe for raw materials and manpower, looking for the best price for both. They then throw up every barrier they can to stop individuals doing the same, region locking and other DRM, bought laws to prevent workarounds etc. They also try to prevent other businesses taking advantage of market disparities to undercut…

What kind of solution do you propose?

For areas like DRM and region locking, the answer is quite simple. Actually enforce ownership and property law for consumers.

If I buy a car, I should be able to decide what I want to do with it. Where I want to drive. Who I allow in it. Where I want to buy gas. Where I want to repair it. Where I want to buy parts. If I want to sell it. and so on and so on.

Once sold, the new owner should have complete control, and all rights should belong to him. If an actor (in this case, the manufacture) can exercise control over the product after its been sold, then the manufacture has illegally taken possession of the product.

In this view, disabling "other os" in playstation was an act of sabotage. Deleting books from the kindle was stealing. It really become simple if one would just accept that the owner is the one that should be in full control of his own property.

Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything

#33

Post by danparsonson »

ubernostrum wrote: post #29
mseebach wrote: post #4

Correct 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?…

You're quite right. I've been far from happy with the way this case has been covered in the tech press; the sky is not falling, you can still resell your iPod when you're done with it. What you can't do is start a side business where you become a company's competitor by finding another country where prices are low enough that you can buy bulk and import into the US for less than the US price. Which should surprise pr…

> What you can't do is start a side business where you become a company's competitor by finding another country where prices are low enough that you can buy bulk and import into the US for less than the US price

Why not? That's the free market economy at work isn't it? How is this different to off-shoring production and supply sourcing to save money?

Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything

#34

Post by Nursie »

stretchwithme wrote: post #27
tomp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of solution do you propose?

Sounds like he'd like to see the barriers removed.

Or made consistent. Another way to tackle it would be (IMHO) -

If there are laws about working conditions for (say) electronics assembly plant workers in the UK, then the UK could insist that any imported electronics are made under similarly compliant conditions abroad - i.e. if you want to access out market you play by our rules. This could cover minimum wages also.

Under those circumstances I would be more happy with grey imports being disallowed, and I would be interested to see the economic outcome.

Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything

#35

Post by mseebach »

danparsonson wrote: post #33
ubernostrum wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're quite right. I've been far from happy with the way this case has been covered in the tech press; the sky is not falling, you can still resell your iPod when you're done with it. What you can't do is start a side business where you become a company's competitor by finding another country where prices are low enough that you can buy bulk and import into the US for less than the US price. Which should surprise pr…

> What you can't do is start a side business where you become a company's competitor by finding another country where prices are low enough that you can buy bulk and import into the US for less than the US price Why not? That's the free market economy at work isn't it? How is this different to off-shoring production and supply sourcing to save money?

Because the law says so. I'm all for changing the law, but that's just not what this case is about.

Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything

#36

Post by stonemetal »

mseebach wrote: post #6
slapshot wrote: post #3

Good 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 s…

Or they could provide a better product for that market that made it naturally distasteful to the US market. Like a book written in the language of the land (The market for CS books written in Filipino should be relatively small in a non Filipino speaking countries). Why make them work when we could just legislate profits their way?

Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything

#37

Post by chalst »

tomp wrote: post #25
Nursie wrote: post #23

This whole area of law annoys me. Globalisation has meant that some companies can shop around the entire globe for raw materials and manpower, looking for the best price for both. They then throw up every barrier they can to stop individuals doing the same, region locking and other DRM, bought laws to prevent workarounds etc. They also try to prevent other businesses taking advantage of market disparities to undercut…

What kind of solution do you propose?

For a start, repeal 17 USC 602 (a) 1.

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap6.html

Then go about repealing other laws that allow companies to slice and dice their markets in this way at the expense of their customers.

Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything

#38

Post by debacle »

slapshot wrote: post #3

Good 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…

> 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 price difference is market arbitrage designed to suck the largest profit out of a market. Pointing out research, or writing, or anything else, ignores the reality that if the production cost warrants a sale price of $x, charging $x * 5 or in some cases $x * 100 and using legal protections to do so is inherently greedy and immoral.

> Students in poor countries just get further screwed.

That's fine, as long as there's a more level playing field.

Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything

#39

Post by aviraldg »

debacle wrote: post #38
slapshot wrote: post #3

Good 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…

> 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 price difference is market arbitrage designed to suck the largest profit out of a market. Pointing out research, or writing, or anything else, ignores the reality that if the production cost warrants a sale price of $x, charging $x * 5 or in some cases $x * 100 and usin…

That's fine? $200 (a figure I saw quoted somewhere for a single college coursebook) is more than the annual fees for some government-run colleges here (in India.)

Re: How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything

#40

Post by debacle »

aviraldg wrote: post #39
debacle wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 price difference is market arbitrage designed to suck the largest profit out of a market. Pointing out research, or writing, or anything else, ignores the reality that if the production cost warrants a sale price of $x, charging $x * 5 or in some cases $x * 100 and usin…

That's fine? $200 (a figure I saw quoted somewhere for a single college coursebook) is more than the annual fees for some government-run colleges here (in India.)

If the market is fair but the price is wrong, the price will change.

Creating fair markets should be the #1 goal of capitalism.

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