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Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

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Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#81

Post by SEMW »

DannyBee wrote: post #64
SEMW wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible they're still trying to determine congress's intent in a sense, they just give a more objective meaning to 'intent': i.e. what a reasonable person reading the statute would think that congress meant by the words they used. (As opposed to what they actually, subjectively meant, per extrinsic evidence like statements made in congress). That's the way intent is read in contract law: it's judged objectively…

Speaking as a lawyer familiar with both english and US law: English contract law is a bit different than US. In the US, it's not objective in general (contracts are held against the drafter, and subjective intent matters). Your description of objective intent is well, not intent in this case :) Objective intent of congress would be what a reasonable person making the statute would have meant, not what a reasonable pe…

Interesting. I'm surprised that US contract law would differ from English in such a fundamental way. Thanks for the explanations, on that and on Scalia's approach.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#82

Post by shardling »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

The publishers will just make sure to produce a different textbook between different regions now. Just re-order the chapters a little and re-order some questions/assignments. So even if someone ships in the foreign book it will be as useless as a previous edition. In general the whole textbook industry makes me sick. But fact is that lecturers are entirely responsible for it. The publishers can only do what the lectu…

>either through apathy or greed the lecturers have shirked their responsibility to their students.

This "greed" idea is just not a thing. It's a meme that's repeated in places like HN, but not something that really exists out there in the real world. There'll be isolated cases, but it's not even a little bit relevant to a discussion of why textbook industry is able to extort students.

In so far as profs. are responsible for "collaborating" with the industry, it's because of inertia, and a poor understanding of the alternatives. And probably also laziness. :)

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#84

Post by [deleted] »

SEMW wrote: post #72
chaddeshon wrote: post #25

It is great that students will be able to get cheap text books. But, are we not concerned that the court seems to be throwing out a law passed by Congress in an area where the Constitution grants them explicit power to act merely because they think the law is a bad idea? Title 17 of the U. S. Code Section 602(a)(1) “Importation into the United States, without the authority of the owner of copyright under this title,…

Having briefly skimmed the Opinion[1] (IANYAL), the heart of it was an exercise of close statutory interpretation to try and figure out exactly how s. 602 interacts with s. 109, with the majority concluding that as s. 602 refers explicitly to the s. 106 exclusive distribution right, it's subject to the same limitations as s. 106 is, including s. 109's First Sale limitation. (So s. 602 then just has the effect that th…

[deleted]

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#85

Post by saraid216 »

pc86 wrote: post #52
jrajav wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it just makes me sad this had to get to the Supreme Court. Not being a lawyer, isn't this the best result possible for consumers in terms of establishing precedent?

It is, the part that makes me sad is we had to set the precedent in the first place. It's good that a precedent has been set but it's ridiculous there was ever a lawsuit over reselling a book.

Hashing out "ridiculous" things is exactly what rule of law is for. Because what's obvious to you is not obvious to everyone, or there wouldn't have been a dispute in the first place.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#86

Post by chaddeshon »

rayiner wrote: post #41
freehunter wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the whole point of the Supreme Court and of the balance of powers. Congress is free to pass whatever law they want, it's up to the Court to decide if the law is valid or Constitutional. If the Court thinks the law is a bad idea, they're free by all means to throw it out, that's the reason they exist.

"It's a bad idea" is a very different thing than "it's unconstitutional." It shouldn't even need to be said, but this is a mistake that is pervasive on HN.[1] There are infinite shitty ideas that are nonetheless Constitutional. The Court is empowered to throw out unconstitutional legislation. It is not empowered to throw out Constitutional legislation that happens to be a bad idea. [1] On everything from campaign fin…

The mass media doesn't often doesn't even try distinguish between the two. For hot button issues that make it to the Supreme Court, there is always a lot of talk about "I think people should be allowed to X" not "the law says Y" or "The Constitution allows Z".

If we want to be in control of our own governance, we would be better served if elected Congressmen make the laws rather than nine old people who are accountable to no one (even if those nine old people are brilliant thinkers).

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#87

Post by shardling »

nitrogen wrote: post #75
wfunction wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bribed? That's a pretty big assumption you're making.

In common usage, "bribed" is a euphemism for "wined, dined, and lobbied," which themselves are euphemisms for "bribed."

And that's still a pretty big assumption.

This doesn't require any explanation other than inertia.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#88

Post by caseysoftware »

usea wrote: post #47
caseysoftware wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't even bother reordering the chapters.. just change a few of the homework/exercises listed in the book. A cursory check will confirm to people that they have the same version and then it bites them later on. At my undergrad, there were some profs concerned about files of old tests.. the obvious solution is to vary the test. The more subtle solution is to use the same test but switch which numbers are where. It st…

If the publisher did this, not only would they lose the sale at the higher price but they'd also cause confusion and mistrust among the students and teacher. There's zero upside.

Make the variance by country and 99.9% of people will never know.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#89

Post by gwright »

akiselev wrote: post #37
r00fus wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, publishers will take pains to make the Thai version incompatible with the American one (a much better implementation of region-coding). If this case went the other way, it would have had all sorts of negative impacts to used item markets. I'm relieved the business-friendly supremes didn't cough up another loss for the consumer.

It seems to me that this SCOTUS has actually had a pretty good track record on civil liberties and these underdog kind of cases (Citizens United notwithstanding)

I don't understand the disdain that Citizens United gets. It is a pretty clear cut application of 1st Amendment principles.

People don't lose their 1st amendment rights simply because they are organized as a corporation. The law can't favor free speech for some corporations/groups (New York Times, MSNBC, UAW, etc.) but not others (non-profit groups like Citizens United).

On top of this, the speech involved was political speech, something that lies at the heart of free speech principles rather than more controversial areas of free speech theory (advertising, obscene or vulgar speech, etc.).

The main argument against Citizens United seemed to be a dislike of the source of funding for the speech (i.e. trying to get 'money' out of politics). But you can't take that approach to the problem without explaining why media corporations (TV networks, newspapers, online media) get some special consideration.

The common ground in this area seems to be in better disclosure and transparency regulations.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#90

Post by DannyBee »

SEMW wrote: post #81
DannyBee wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a lawyer familiar with both english and US law: English contract law is a bit different than US. In the US, it's not objective in general (contracts are held against the drafter, and subjective intent matters). Your description of objective intent is well, not intent in this case :) Objective intent of congress would be what a reasonable person making the statute would have meant, not what a reasonable pe…

Interesting. I'm surprised that US contract law would differ from English in such a fundamental way. Thanks for the explanations, on that and on Scalia's approach.

Contracts(well, consumer sales, anyway) in the US is done by Uniform Commercial Code. Basically, model legislation that was adopted by all states.

It is, in part, an explicit repudiation of English common law.

(Note that I generalized. There are areas where subjective intent does not matter, and areas where it does, but it's nowhere near as objective as English law)

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