Selling a used iPod can violate a copyright law • Hacker News Board

Re: Selling a used iPod can violate a copyright law

#41

Post by Natsu » Sat, Jun 23, 2012, 7:48 AM UTC

A1kmm wrote: post #34

I firstly don't understand why Wiley didn't sue the guy for the importation, rather than the resale. Importing copyrighted works for anything other than personal use unambiguously requires copyright holder permission by a plain reading of 17 U.S.C. 602 ( http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/Title_17.txt ). I think that is a bad law, but it is nevertheless an existing law. Instead, they try to argue that it is the res…

Yeah, their reading of that statute is absurd, but the reason they argued this way is because they really want to be able to clamp down on individuals reselling their own goods. This follows previous attempts to expand the control copyright holders can exert, like Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc.

Hopefully this gets shut down, or we'll start seeing paperback books with EULAs printed on the first page, taking us all the way back to Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus.

Re: Selling a used iPod can violate a copyright law

#42

Post by Natsu » Sat, Jun 23, 2012, 7:51 AM UTC

dubfan wrote: post #8

daeken wrote: post #6

> Almost every product made now has a copyright logo on it. That logo, alone, empowers manufacturers to sue people for copyright infringement for unlawful sales. Logos are not copyrightable (well, you could copyright an image of one...) but fall under trademark law. I have a hard time trusting an article about this stuff that confuses copyright and trademark law; they're two completely unrelated, different beasts.

I believe the author is referring to the copyright symbol (the c with a circle around it). This article could have used more thorough proofreading and editing.

Nope. They're almost certainly talking about the company logo. See Omega S.A. v. Costco Wholesale Corp.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_S.A._v._Costco_Wholesale....

Re: Selling a used iPod can violate a copyright law

#43

Post by rdl » Sat, Jun 23, 2012, 9:51 AM UTC

excuse-me wrote: post #23

tikhonj wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, I think some supercar makers already do something like this--they make you sign a contract limiting how soon you can sell your car or even mandating that you allow the company to review and control whom you can sell the car to. Of course, this only works for really expensive but limited edition cars. If there is a several year waiting list just to get the chance to drop half a million on a car, the car maker…

On the other hand, suppose a group of car makers all coincidentally decided to impose this - purely for safety concerns. And while they couldn't ban after market parts, they could make the engine not start if the new brakes/mufflers/cat didn't give the correct crypto response to the engine management system. And just imagine that congress would bow down to the car makers (that it had just bailed out) and rule that yo…

I think the Nissan GT-R had some components like this, actually.

Re: Selling a used iPod can violate a copyright law

#44

Post by tikhonj » Sat, Jun 23, 2012, 10:25 AM UTC

rdl wrote: post #43

excuse-me wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, suppose a group of car makers all coincidentally decided to impose this - purely for safety concerns. And while they couldn't ban after market parts, they could make the engine not start if the new brakes/mufflers/cat didn't give the correct crypto response to the engine management system. And just imagine that congress would bow down to the car makers (that it had just bailed out) and rule that yo…

I think the Nissan GT-R had some components like this, actually.

Did it? All I heard was that it had certain components hand-built and customized to each other (like the engine and the transmission). However, this is an entirely mechanical issue: since it wasn't really mass-produced, each motor and gearbox is different, so replacing them is going to be nontrivial.

Of course, I'm not an expert, and could certainly be missing information on other components of the GT-R. Either way, it's useful to keep in mind that the GT-R is a really crazy car :P.

Re: Selling a used iPod can violate a copyright law

#45

Post by CJefferson » Sat, Jun 23, 2012, 10:26 AM UTC

praptak wrote: post #40

haberman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is intended to make it possible to sell things at different prices in Mexico City and LA, which in turn makes it more viable to sell things in Mexico City at all. You may not love it, but it's at least a rational system. Thanks for this explanation, I've despised these anti-arbitrage region-coding-like rules for a while, but when you put it this way it at least makes some kind of sense.

Of course it makes sense, every such rule has some rational intent. The intent here is market segmentation: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie... But my response to that kind of bullshit is as always: if you can make profit at price X in Mexico City and the importer can still make their profit after undercutting you in US, then you're just scalping your US customers. There should be no laws…

That assumes zero fixed cost. Perhaps if you sold to all your customers at Mexico City prices, you would make a large loss.

Re: Selling a used iPod can violate a copyright law

#46

Post by flannell » Sat, Jun 23, 2012, 10:30 AM UTC

I found an almost new iPod that had been dropped on the floor. I spent a few minutes looking for the owners details but other than a few Rihanna tunes and rap videos watched on Youtube I couldn't establish the owners contact details.

SO I gave it into the local police station. I asked if I could collect it if no one claimed it within 30 days. No. It comes under data protection act and have to be destroyed. Bloody UK law.

Re: Selling a used iPod can violate a copyright law

#47

Post by rdl » Sat, Jun 23, 2012, 7:30 PM UTC

tikhonj wrote: post #44

rdl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Nissan GT-R had some components like this, actually.

Did it? All I heard was that it had certain components hand-built and customized to each other (like the engine and the transmission). However, this is an entirely mechanical issue: since it wasn't really mass-produced, each motor and gearbox is different, so replacing them is going to be nontrivial. Of course, I'm not an expert, and could certainly be missing information on other components of the GT-R. Either way,…

I know they were trying to prevent it from being "chipped", and putting cryptographic interlocks in major components is the best way to keep the ECU from being completely replaced.