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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

#51

Post by talmand »

gabemart wrote: post #43
debacle wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the market is fair but the price is wrong, the price will change. Creating fair markets should be the #1 goal of capitalism.

>If the market is fair but the price is wrong, the price will change. You're assuming that a price that no-one in a developing country can afford is the same as a price that is "wrong". It's perfectly possible that a price that no-one in a developing country can afford is "right" from an economic perspective in that it's profit maximizing for the producer.

If you have to sell your product at the "right" price, meaning profit, in a market that can't afford that price then the problem isn't the price; you are selling the "wrong" product.

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

#52

Post by mindslight »

tomp wrote: post #49
_delirium wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you mean there are sometimes reasons for import tariffs, then that might be true (it's a large debate in economics). I don't see why copyrighted goods should be treated specially, though. If a country wants an import tariff on books, just like on sugar or on steel, in order to maintain price differences, it should institute it directly, rather than via this roundabout copyright route.

Tariffs actually achieve just the opposite - it increases the cost of foreign imports. Also, it does it for everybody, also for authorized importers/resellers. Well, sometimes there is hardly anything else but copyright that constitutes products (e.g. media, books). Personally, I would also enable the same kind of protection for trademarks (so that iPad could be sold for different price in West and elsewhere).

Even better, why not set the price of an iPad to production cost + 1% of a person's yearly income? Resale under pain of death.

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

#53

Post by helmut_hed »

Those companies argue differential pricing schemes are vital to their success, and should be enforced by US courts

I find this sort of reasoning very frustrating. It's not the job of the courts to ensure that anyone's business model can continue to be followed profitably. There may be sound legal reasons to overturn precedent in this case, but "companies are losing money" is not one.

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

#54

Post by mindslight »

Zak wrote: post #45
dsr_ wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three plausible answers: 1. Remove the barriers. Drop import and export restrictions, drop punitive tariffs, reduce taxes; at the same time, make restrictive DRM and equivalents (copyright controlling imports, in the instant case) illegal. This will reduce production costs and reduce selling prices. Overall, standard of living will rise slightly where production costs are low and sink more dramatically where producti…

It's probably not necessary to ban DRM - just to legalize circumvention.

Except then things like warranties get tied to whether you've customized the software on the device. And never mind the herd of people scared into not taking control of their device ("jailbreaking") by nebulous threats of virii or future manufacturer retribution.

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

#55

Post by bsenftner »

helmut_hed wrote: post #53

Those companies argue differential pricing schemes are vital to their success, and should be enforced by US courts I find this sort of reasoning very frustrating. It's not the job of the courts to ensure that anyone's business model can continue to be followed profitably. There may be sound legal reasons to overturn precedent in this case, but "companies are losing money" is not one.

This sure sounds like Corporate Welfare to me. Those damn Socialist Capitalists are pretty good at calling the kettle black.

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

#56

Post by danielweber »

mseebach wrote: post #18
olefoo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. If the sale happened in the US, it doesn't matter where the product was produced, first sale applies. Apple can't in any form claim that an iPhone purchased in an Apple store in the US was, in fact, an unlicensed import. Again, corr…

The Second Circuit decision does seem to say that Apple can deny first-sale rights on things manufactured overseas and sold in the US by Apple. I was skeptical, but the dissent in that case talks at length about it, and I assume the dissenting judge knows more than me about what's at stake.

That said, it's just about a guarantee that SCOTUS won't stomp all over the first-sale doctrine. It can easily keep both the first-sale-in-the-US rule alive as well as maintaining the rights of IP holders against unauthorized imports.

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

#57

Post by SparrowOS »

God says...

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

#58

Post by TheAmazingIdiot »

belorn wrote: post #32
tomp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

I very much agree with this sentiment.

The whole PS3 removal of otherOS is a plain "computer crimes" law. Charge Sony with 1 count per device. Nice criminal case there.

Next we have Monsanto, who runs around finding seeds contaminated with roundup resistance. If you, a farmer, try to save seed, you will get bit by this. Since Monsanto argues it's their patent and their seed, I say we agree with them. And when their property is elsewhere, that sounds like trespassing...for.every.seed.

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

#59

Post by Dylan16807 »

mindslight wrote: post #54
Zak wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably not necessary to ban DRM - just to legalize circumvention.

Except then things like warranties get tied to whether you've customized the software on the device. And never mind the herd of people scared into not taking control of their device ("jailbreaking") by nebulous threats of virii or future manufacturer retribution.

The solution then is to ban oppressive warranty terms. Only abusive/negligent care should void warranties like that.

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

#60

Post by hn_is_vile »

tomp wrote: post #24
Zak wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? Regardless of the consequences, it's surprising to me that anybody who doesn't earn money through regional copyright-based price discrimination thinks that it's proper fo…

Common sense says that the copyright holder shouldn't stop you and me from transfering goods from another country (where we are on vacation) to our home countries. It would be absurd that I would have to leave behind my iPod that I bought in Dubai or the magazine I bought in Vietnam. However, it's quite reasonable to prevent business import of goods from abroad. Then, you're basically preventing the producer from ass…

Wouldn't that be a restraint of trade? According to this: http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/countries_e/thailand_e.h... Thailand is a member of the WTO. If you prevent a business in the US from importing goods from Thailand that are not illicit or restricted, then wouldn't that constitute a trade barrier?
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