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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."
It seems like the dominant trend in U.S. legislation is that if favors rich corporiations and individuals, at the cost of what seem like basic freedoms of common citizens.
Does anyone know, historically, whether all countries have this trend? And if so, historically, what things (if any) have lead to the reversa of these trends? I.e., does it require a reboot (i.e., full-blown revoluion), or is even that never enough?
only applies to goods made in the US.
So nothing then? Why pick a Swiss watch? Why not go with something like a Nike football. Good ole' American Nike making American football, right? Wrong. I bet all the clothes on me right now came from Vietnam or Cambodia or Thailand or some other Asian fabric powerhouse. Donating them to a Goodwill store to be resold would be ... illegal?
Furthermore the article notes CostCo but what about Wal-Mart and Target. They resell these same articles of clothing as a middleman. Do they have some special contract protecting them from the largest copyright lawsuit to ever hit the retail industry?
This is so bizarre and just another indication of how copyright is seriously broken. If I understand the article, it's just because there's an Omega emblem on the watch? So since CostCo now owns that watch, they can chip the logo off and sell it for whatever price they want? This makes about as much logical sense as smearing my face with my own feces before a job interview.
Is there any lawyer out there with some background in this that might tell me what implications this holds for something like clothing being sold at Wal-Mart on the cheap? Or does it need to have an MSRP on it? How does this apply to software developed here but pressed overseas? So many questions I could dream up to ask about this new court decision.
My work here is dung.
Nothing illustrates the collective ridiculousness of the current Supreme Court than this decision.
So now, foreign companies have vastly greater control of their products in your home than American companies do.
That is not exactly a decision that is in the best interest of the American people.
Just wait till the chinese manufacturers start toying with one. Want to sell your used motherboard on craigslist? Sorry, no can do, this luxuriuously ASUS-branded product was sold to YOU and only YOU.
Considering the amount of stuff that gets produced abroad, I suspect this decision will soon be so full of holes and exceptions that it wont be an issue.
-- Home is where you eat your heart out.
Until people wake up and realize that they do not owe copyright owners anything, nothing will change. I had a conversation a few weeks ago with a person who used to work for the recording industry, and when I suggested that there might not be any ethical problem with downloading unauthorized copies of music and movies, he became so emotional that the conversation ended with him demanding that I never speak to him again. When the people "on the other side" of the issue are fighting like it is a matter of life and death, what hope do the rest of us have when most people just do not see copyright as being a particularly big deal?
Palm trees and 8
Why? Partly because she was the Solicitor General:
SHAPIRO: How common is it for a new justice to have to recuse from the number of cases that Kagan is recusing herself from?
TOTENBERG: Well, it's not common because, at least more recently, we haven't had top Justice Department officials migrating to the court. But it's happened many times in our history. Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was solicitor general, for example, recused himself from about half the cases the court heard in his first year. But that high number was largely because he remained SG until he was confirmed.
And Kagan didn't do that. She stopped being SG right after her nomination. So, this high number of recusals, I think, is front loaded. She'll probably be recused from about a third of the docket this year, and then next year her recusals will plummet to zero or something close to that.
One interesting thing, Ari, is that there are a number of cases that she's reused herself from that she really had nothing to do with. And these are cases that generally involve commercial disputes. And the Justice Department filed a notice that it was taking no position, and these are just routine evaluations. They're done by lower-level lawyers but she signed the filing, so she's taking herself out of those cases.
SHAPIRO: And when she's recused and there are eight justices on the Supreme Court, what happens then?
TOTENBERG: Well, the case goes forward, as usual. And if there's a four-to-four tie, the lower court opinion is automatically affirmed without the Supreme Court issued any opinion, then presumably the issue can come up in another case, later, where Kagan can participate.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
Dred Scott may have been an immoral ruling, but it was also legally correct. Under the Union Constitution, each member state had freedom to decide if blacks were Citizens or Property. The justices did what they were supposed to do: Enforce the law as written. It was upto the Congress/States to change the law (via amendment) not the courts.
In contrast Wickard v. Filburn can not be justified in any context. It gave the Union government power to tell a man he was not allowed to grow food for his OWN consumption. That is not what the Supreme Law says, nor the original intent of the authors. ----- Intrastate commerce is the purview of the Member State - alone. In fact: Eating your own food isn't even commerce. Period.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
PJ O'Rourke wrote a great book on politics and economics called Eat The Rich. In his book, he examines a number of different political systems and concludes that so long as there is rule of law and private property rights, almost any political system can function. This is true of capitalism, socialism, communism, and even fascism. Take away either of those two components -- rule of law or private property rights -- and you've got trouble.
This story is just another example of our disappearing private property rights. The basic test of ownership is disposal. If you have the right to dispose of an item in some way, through sale, donation, alteration, or destruction (safely, of course), then you own it. If you are prohibited from doing any of these things, then it is not really yours.
Proverbs 21:19