Supreme Court To Consider First Sale of Imports

Animaether passes along a legal tale that "doesn't involve the kind of cutting-edge issues that copyright lawyers usually grapple with in the digital age [and] sounds like the kind of lawsuit that should have been resolved 200 years ago," yet still "is very much a product of the Internet-driven global economy." "Can copyright owners assert rights over imported goods that have already been sold once? That is the issue before the Supreme Court in Costco Wholesale Corp v. Omega, S.A. (backstory here). What's at stake is the ability of resellers to offer legitimate, non-pirated versions of copyrighted goods, manufactured in foreign nations, to US consumers at prices that undercut those charged by the copyright holders."

Comments

Re:Why does this even need to be discussed?

[Dravik]

They can cover production costs of drugs where the development costs have already been recouped. There is a reason that most drugs come to market in Canada five or more years after the US. Yes it would be great if all those other countries would remove their price controls and pay their fair share. Since they aren't going to do that, we have to cover the development costs or they won't be developed. If you want to see what happens when everybody has price controls, look at the vaccine market. There are only three companies that make flu vaccine. There have been virtually no advances in production in the last 20 years.