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:Copyright weirdness

[girlintraining]

wrong, copyright 200 years ago applied to the information, the data, in a book. You could in 1790 copy a book by hand, sell the copy you made,and be in violation of copyright law.

Citation needed! And I'll provide. You want the Copyright Act of 1790, which was created to "securing authors the 'sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing and vending' the copies of their 'maps, charts, and books' for a term of 14 years, with the right to renew for one additional 14 year term should the copyright holder still be alive."

So you could make a handwritten copy for personal use and not be in violation of copyright law. You could also re-sell anything protected by copyright law that you lawfully purchased without any strings. Neither is true today, which is what this case is all about.

Already against the law in the UK

[thisissilly]

Tesco (think British Wal-mart) was legal purchasing Levi's jeans in Europe from wholesalers, and then reselling them in the UK for lower price than Levi's wanted them sold there. Levi's sued them, and won. We can only hope the US Supreme Court sees things differently.

"Grey Market"

[tlhIngan]

I don't know why it's a copyright issue, since it's a physical item, but usually we call such legitimate imports "grey market" goods. They're not officially for sale ("white market") nor are they illegal to sell ("black market"), but they're legally sold goods for distribution elsewhere that's re-imported for local sale.

Happens all the time even with IP materials like books, CDs and DVDs. Hell, Amazon and Walmart are probably the biggest "offenders" - I can buy two CDs, one locally and one from Amazon (or Walmart) and the local one is from the Canadian distributor, while the one I got from Amazon (or Walmart) comes from the US.

Ditto books - sometimes the US-Canadian book pricing is so out of whack, it's cheaper to get it from Amazon.com than Amazon.ca even with shipping charges.

Camera manufacturers used to be the biggest PITA regarding grey market goods - if you imported a camera, they would insist that warranties and such were only honored in the purchasing country - buy it in the US, service is done in the US, other countries would not touch it. Oh yeah, and the return shipping, to that address in the country.

Thankfully, for most products this doesn't happen (it's not strictly illegal, but it's a great way to piss off customers) anymore - I figure most companies gave up trying to track serial numbers and points of origin, and lets them move inventory around as needed by demand.

Of course, importation of such products is perfectly legal.

Re:How does copyright come into play here?

[reverseengineer]

Want to know what the copyright is really being asserted on? Here's a picture of the back of an Omega Seamaster watch, the article in question. (No affiliation with the site, just what Google turned up first). Omega isn't asserting copyright on their main logo; they've been using it for over a century. Also, it's the Greek letter omega, not exactly a highly stylized and unique design. They aren't asserting copyright on the Seamaster seahorse that dominates the back, though you'd think that desgin qualifies as the best example of artistic authorship on the watch. Omega has been making Seamasters for about 60 years, so I would think that image could still be copyrighted. But that's not what Omega is claiming infringement on either.

The artwork Omega is enforcing a copyright on is that pattern of circles with an omega in it, just to the right of the pronounced Omega logo and above the "825" in the linked picture. That little doodle is about 0.5 centimeters in diameter, and apparently Omega is arguing that when you buy an Omega Seamaster, you are buying an authorized reproduction of that triumph of human artistic endeavor for the agreed-upon price of two thousand dollars. Omega just happens to be so generous as to frame your purchase with a diving watch.