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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."
I thought I had a decent understanding of the three legal spheres grouped under "Intellectual Property": patents, copyright and trademarks. But I don't understand why copyright is involved in this specific case. Wouldn't Omega's logo stamped on products be something protected as a trademark, not as a copyrighted work?
Yes, it is a foregone conclusion, but not in the way you probably are thinking. You see, the rights of corporations must be protected at all costs. They can not be restricted by silly concepts like the sovereignty of nations, fair use, personal property rights, or any other fundamental concept of our legal systems. Don't worry, the Supreme Court will help them achieve their profits at any cost. I sure hope I'm wrong, but let's watch and see.
It's even nastier than that, in some cases, because some "real and tangible" property is now complex enough to enforce(against all but extremely sophisticated individuals) its own rules about use.
CSS is pitifully weak; but it was perhaps the first demonstration of this concept that gained huge market traction. Thanks to CSS licensing requirements, adding technologically enforced region coding became trivial.
As the cost of computing power continues to fall, and the number of devices that have embedded firmware and/or unique serial numbers continues to increase, there is virtually no area of "real property" over which the DMCA and copyright law will not eventually exert de facto control.
The problem is that Congress did a lousy job of writing section 602 of the copyright code. It's clear to me that the intent of the law is that this should apply to goods manufactured abroad without the consent of the copyright holder. It calls it a violation of the copyright holder's right to produce and distribute something. Except, of course, that the copyright holder has already exercised that right.
:)
Interestingly enough, if I read it correctly, this doesn't apply to people importing things for their own personal use. So downloading music from a jurisdiction that doesn't recognize US copyrights is completely legit, as long as you don't share it with anyone.
No, it's the same as saying "because the supreme court decided that way in a similar situation, and it's a real waste of time to try to reverse the supreme court with our own fanciful rulings". That doesn't seem to stop the Ninth Circuit, however.
It's also a way of adding inertia to the system, which in the long run is a good thing. It's very hard doing anything under a system that flip-flops every time a judge farts. Or in a country where three regions (circuits) operate under courts that rule one way and the rest under different rulings.
That's also why the inertia of having a bicameral legislature is worth the effort.
The GP is actually right. Pharmaceutical price controls in other countries are subsidized by higher prices in the US. If (e.g.) Canadian price controls were to be applied globally, the potential returns for R&D of new drugs would drop dramatically, to the point that many drugs currently in development would be abandoned and much potential new research would never get off the ground.
This is the inconvenient truth that gets lost in the health care debate - one of the reasons that modern health care is so expensive is that all the cheap/easy medical advances are generations behind us. Modern advances are necessarily far more difficult and expensive to develop, and those costs must be borne by somebody if the research is to continue. At the same time, progressive medical advances have made it possible to add years to the end of many people's lives, and have made many previously fatal conditions survivable. Unfortunately, the older a person becomes, the more medical care he needs, and the more likely he is to develop a condition that is now survivable, but only at great expense.
This is why any true health reform must draw a balance between providing treatment and managing costs. At some point, 87 year-old John Smith is going to have to accept that society cannot afford to spend $5 million on cancer treatment to extend his life by another 6 months. Try selling that to the voters, though.
Thankfully, for most products this doesn't happen
It does for a lot of laptops. That's why many companies seem to have - for example - a model that ends in -US or CA. The major model number on the top may say DX8200, but the stamp on the bottom is more specifically a DX8243CA...
Imagine: Omega watches which sync up with the radio signal from an atomic clock, but refuse to configure themselves for any timezones other than those for which it was authorized for sale.
Of course, they'd lose the lucrative international traveler market. Or they'll have temporary time zone support, but if you stay too long in a foreign timezone it will reset or disable itself.
And then comes the question: what if I, as an (American) international traveler, buy one of their manufactured-in-Switzerland watches cheaply in an authorized country, travel back to the US, and then decide I don't like it (or need the money) and want to sell the watch on eBay? Apparently they want to bar me from selling the watch because it wasn't authorized for sale in the US.
Will they have their goons patrolling the US looking for people wearing imported watches and harass them to show their receipts showing they personally purchased the watch overseas or give up who sold them the watch under threat of prosecution? "Product's papers, please?"
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I disagree with your analysis. You claim that they tend towards being somewhat decentralized. On the contrary, I think they start out as decentralized "entrepreneurships" and then tend towards becoming centralized "organized crime".
We call these centralized units "the Mob" or "cartels" or something.
Without firsthand knowledge, I'd bet that Somalia's pirate business has consolidated in this fashion in the last few years as well. It's highly unlikely that each pirate vessel and crew act on their own without higher controlling authority.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I just got this horrific image of a dystopian future in which you have to carry on your person licenses for every piece of hardware, software, content, fashion accessory, haircut, tattoo, etc. that you have on your person. Don't have your license? Pay the fine or go to jail. The scariest thing about that is I can see it coming true.
I think I need to go lie down...
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
That's why the "free market" as it is often described is a myth, akin to the point mass used when teaching physics. It's a nice theoretical concept, but it doesn't reflect reality very well.