First-Sale Doctrine Lost Overseas

Max Hyre writes "In a 4-4 decision, the US Supreme court let stand the Ninth Circuit's decision that the First-Sale Doctrine (which says once you buy something, the maker gets no say in what you do with it) only applies to goods made in the US. That Omega watch you bought in Switzerland last year? It's yours now—forever. You can't sell it without Omega's permission."

Comments

First sale doctrine

[just_another_sean]

That is the most absurd and arbitrary distinction I've ever heard. A law of convenience if I ever heard of one. One step closer to stripping our rights in the name of international legal harmony.

Re:First sale doctrine

[BassMan449]

Wickard v. Filburn is easily the worst decision the Supreme Court ever made. The twisted logic that they went through to conclude that by not participating in commerce he had effected commerce and was therefore subject to regulation is absurd.

Re:First sale doctrine

[PopeRatzo]

Do we really need a constitutional amendment to clarify that yes, people are actually people?

No, but we certainly need a constitutional amendment to clarify that no, corporations are not actually people.

Re:First sale doctrine

[afabbro]

Under the Union Constitution, each member state had freedom to decide if blacks were Citizens or Property.

So every state gets the freedom to decide for themselves whether black people are people? What other conditions do states have the right to place on a person’s “person-hood”? Do we really need a constitutional amendment to clarify that yes, people are actually people?

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America...

Dude, wipe the foam off your chin and read some history. Yes, we did need an amendment. Yes, we have one. We did not have it at the time the Dred Scot decision was handed down.

Quoting the preamble means nothing. At the time it was written, blacks were not considered part of "We the People". Have you actually read any history, or don't they teach that at your high school any more?

Re:First sale doctrine

[VortexCortex]

I can top it. In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886), the SCOTUS decided that corporations were people and thus entitled to 14th amendment protection.

Yes, Corporations, have all the benefits of being 'people', none of the drawbacks (such as finite life spans), and obey few of the laws that other 'people' must observe.

Corporations are free to merge with many other corporations, while polygamy is still illegal for 'people' in most states.

Corporations are allowed to have business practices such as "cutting off the competitor's air supply" while murder is still illegal for 'people'.

Corporations are allowed to be dissolved yet Suicide is illegal for 'people' to commit.

Corporations can have 'hostile takeovers' of other weaker corporations, but armed robbery, slavery, and blackmail are all still illegal for other categories of 'people'.

It would be pure anarchy and rule of the corrupt and powerful if real human 'people' were given the same rights as corporate entities have. Laws against things such as murder are in effect to help maintain order and security of society.

Feudalism, chaos and insecurity reign supreme among our most wealthiest 'people', the corporations; Some of us fight for less regulation and then wonder why the economic society is so chaotic and insecure...

The stupidest thing is

[Compaqt]

that they based it on copyright law: an Omega logo on the watch.

I thought it would be something like a signed contract, or buying from a foreign wholesaler, then importing to the US.

But the copyright on the logo?

That's Not What The Article Says

[raftpeople]

"prevent U.S. retailers from selling goods they obtained overseas."

There is a difference between "produced overseas" and "obtained overseas".

Re:That's Not What The Article Says

[EdIII]

Unfortunately, the idea that we can enjoy our own property peacefully and privately has been under attack for quite some time now.

I recently gave up trying to explain to some mentally challenged person here on Slashdot the very simple concept of property ownership and how once somebody sells you something they literally have no rights over it. Morally, ethically, etc... no rights.

It has been this way forever. In the Wild West if you sold some guy a horse and then fucked with him 6 weeks later about a saddle he did not buy from you, your ass would have been shot. Nobody would have had sympathy for you either. Society would have considered you insane.

Now, with DRM and the DMCA companies can try telling me that I don't own my own hardware and because some mental midgets don't want to get cheated on in video games, I should not have the right to fully own my own hardware. It's all magically different because we are talking about software some how?

According to the article this twisted, disgusting, morally offensive logic now applies to non-electronic hardware!?

This is the point where, as a people, globally, we just need to stand up and kill the top 3% of the people running the planet that have these stupid ideas. There is such a thing as too far and the last straw.

The First Sale Doctrine is not just some piece of random legal logic. It was a rebuke to the sociopathic executives and marketers that had the ridiculous idea they could try to keep controlling and monetizing their products after they sold them. It recognized something we all understand to be a fundamental human right, something sacrosanct, something to be rigorously defended.

Now we are allowing Sony and these Swiss douchebags to have permanent co-ownership of our property. How the heck are we losing these arguments? It's a no-brainer. My shit is my shit. Back off.

Re:Good luck

[commodore64_love]

"I don't get paid for work I did two decades ago. Why should you?"

"Um... uh... well..."

"That's what I thought. There is no justifiable reason to extend copyright beyond about 10 years. There is no reason why you should get an annual payment for the rest of your life for work you did when you were age 20 or 30. *I* don't get that privilege of lifelong income. I work. I get paid. I might get a bonus at the end-of-the-year or decade for work well done, and that's the end of it. The same should be true for you."

Re:Will this ever improve?

[rwa2]

Yep, pretty much. We've moved from a manufacturing and research economy to a purely intellectual property economy. All our wealth is going to be tied up in imaginary pieces of paper that say that people have to pay us for using computer software, or by building windshield wipers a particular way, making pharmaceuticals with a particular active ingredient, or for listening to music or watching movies (ooh, a toll on "culture"). We even get money if they record and distribute content themselves using patented h.264 video codecs. So all we need to do is just sit back and collect the money, backed by the threat of economic or conventional warfare if they don't pay up. Maybe once in a while we need to renew or trivially update our patents or copyrights to keep anyone from innovating around them, thus maintaining the status quo.

Not much different from the way things were in the colonial era, where we sent a lot of profits back to the empire, and you needed official licenses from the king to operate trade routes or the navy would sink you. Heck, they even still unabashedly call some of these payments "royalties" today. Fortunately, we know how this turned out, so we can probably count on history repeating itself eventually.

Re:What does this mean?

[TFAFalcon]

Why are only corporations allowed to take advantage of the 'global economy' (outsourcing), but customers should be prevented from purchasing goods where they are cheapest?

Re:Good luck

[nospam007]

Really? What about house builders, infrastructure?

Should the people who built a highway get money from every user for the rest of their lives?

Should the painter who did the exterior of my house get a say on allowing me to repaint it in a different color?

 

Read Twain. Twain will save you.

[jeko]

If I had the power to destroy one fiendishly wrong-headed notion before I die, the following would be on the short list:

The justices did what they were supposed to do: Enforce the law as written.

Sigh. Have you seen the inscriptions over the Court? ""Equal Justice Under Law" coming, "Justice, the Guardian of Liberty" going. Maybe you've seen the statue of the blind-folded chick? Wanna take a guess what her name is?

The ultimate job of the Court is not just "to follow the rules." A third-grade hall monitor would be sufficient for that. The ultimate job of the Court is to find what is Just. It is the job of a god in the hands of flawed, fallible men. This is the reason why we are supposed to find our nine finest legal minds, our nine wisest elders.

In our finest legal traditions, we have found that the beginning of Justice, the bare minimum, is to keep the Strong from preying on the Weak, and that is why Dred Scott is such a famously reprehensible decision. We don't condemn the Sharia judges for stoning women to death because they're misapplying the rules. We condemn them for the evil they do by refusing to look beyond the rulebook. The Dred Scott Court cannot excuse themselves by crying "We were just following the rules" any more than other famously evil men can.

When we put guns in the hands of 18-year-old kids and tell them to go and kill in our name, we give them a warning. If the rules conflict with your conscience, if you do something you know is wrong by following the rules, you will one day be held accountable, and crying "I was just doing what the rules said I should," will not save you.

The job of the Court is to find Justice as best Humanity can in the year 2010. It is their black-letter job to stand in the gap and say "This rule, written by the Strong to steal from the Weak, is wrong and we will not abide it."

The Court is supposed to be the Conscience of our Nation, not nine bureaucrats bludgeoning people with the results of lobbies and politics.

The job of the Dred Scott Court was to keep men free. to be the "Guardians of Liberty" as inscribed, not to safeguard the pocketbooks of their kidnappers and rapists. The Dred Scott judges were not "Bad men, but good judges." They were evil men and bad judges as well.