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Student Charged For Re-selling Textbooks
AstroPhilosopher writes "The U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal from a Thai student who was fined $600,000 for re-selling textbooks. Trying to make ends meet, the student had family members in Thailand mail him textbooks that were made and purchased abroad, which he then resold in the U.S. It's a method many retailers practice every day. 'Discount sellers like Costco and Target and Internet giants eBay and Amazon help form an estimated $63 billion annual market for goods that are purchased abroad, then imported and resold without the permission of the manufacturer. The U.S.-based sellers, and consumers, benefit from the common practice of manufacturers to price items more cheaply abroad than in the United States. This phenomenon is sometimes called a parallel market or grey market.'"
Discount sellers like Costco and Target and Internet giants eBay and Amazon help form an estimated $63 billion annual market for goods that are purchased abroad, then imported and resold without the permission of the manufacturer.
As someone who once foolishly bought a robotics book used on Amazon ($8) that was supposed to be the real thing ($80) and instead received an Indian release version, I must say that I do not see the parallels here. First off, the Costco case applied to goods made inside the US -- not goods made outside the US like this case. These are two mutually exclusive sets of products so it's quite different in that the big retailers re-import goods made here. I find this to be a painfully important discrepancy since, especially in this case, books and other copyrighted material have very strict distribution channels. I'm not saying its right. I'm not saying it's how things should be. I'm just telling you it's how they are. And these publishers enter contracts with affiliates in other nations. A book's value is mostly determined by its content and when you're marking that down in a foreign country through a foreign distributor, it's massively different than marking down a BMW in Mexico or a wristwatch in Switzerland. The watch and car are tangible goods that may have some intrinsic value and copyright but more importantly provide a functionality. This is not the case with the textbook. I would guess in the case of college textbooks, this guy was breaking many more laws than in the case of the watch -- especially given the United States' ridiculous laws governing copyright. In the case of my purchased textbooks, the quality of the book was horrid. A paperback binding that fell apart almost instantly and seemed to be held together with potato paste with graphs I could not read since the ink was so shoddy compared to glossy thick hardcover American release. Still, the words were the same words ... and I passed the course.
My work here is dung.
When will they stop? Ever?
When I was doing my MBA, I was able to find "international versions" of textbooks on Ebay or the like. They were identical to the domestic versions but were not hardcover, in some cases printed on cheap paper - those kinds of differences. Nice way to save yourself 50% or so.
I'm not sure why publishers foist the high-grade materials on everyone especially at the college level where the book will never be used again - that is, unless it's meant to be fit for resale.
..in which you decide how much the product costs not based on how much the product costs to make, but on how much money the potential buyer has. parallel or gray market is just a term the content holders would like to use, since it doesn't make them look like asshats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
it's bullshit, of course. too bad for the publishers that books don't come with drm chips.
(I'm assuming that in this case the books were original - as in printed with copyright holders permission).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
foist the high-grade materials on everyone especially at the college level where the book will never be used again - that is, unless it's meant to be fit for resale.
I'm no MBA but this is pretty clear to even me.
My work here is dung.
It never occurred to me that selling these could possibly be grounds for a major fine. To me, this is just as bad an idea as region coding on DVD's or disallowing Americans from purchasing pharmaceuticals abroad.
My userid is prime!
That is why text book get updated so much also some professors get a cut of the book costs for the books they author so some of them rip out pages to force students to buy a new book for the class.
Also other ways to make profit is the filler and high number of gen eds that at some College push out what used to be 4 years to 5 years.
High cost dorm room that cost more then renting on your own to live a with a room mate and have shared bathroom with a full floor also have to go off campus during brakes.
High cost meal plans that have hidden fees and other stuff that can force people to buy $100's in caddy as the funds are on use it or lose it cash cards that time out.
As long as custom is paid, then it should be FULLY legal. After all if firm/MPAA/whatnot can have region code, and import cheap from China, or even outsource jobs, then everybody should be allowed to do it. Globalisation and import/export as logn as custom are paid, should be fully legal. And if they (publisher) lose money on that, bad luck.
Pretty much a cartel at this point. They even got together with the teacher's unions and pretty much killed the sale of used teacher edition books on ebay and the like to shut homeschoolers out of the market. Teachers made up the sob story of kids buying teacher editions to copy the solutions out of because they just wanted to photocopy the books. Textbook makers went along since they wanted homeschoolers to buy full price new editions instead of selling used copies between each other.
Even if you aren't a homeschooler, it jacked up the prices of textbooks immensely.
I fail to understand how the first-sale doctrine does not apply just because the first sale was outside the US. I would understand completely if ICE was coming after him for not paying duties or tariffs, but what does copyright have to do with anything here? He didn't make copies. He simply resold books the publisher was already paid for.
can it apply to books? and if so, does it still apply if the book was violating copyright? but how about if it WASN'T violating copyright where it was originally sold? It's a complicated issue. From a purely ethical/common sense standpoint it should be ok for him to sell it, but there may be laws bought onto the books that prevent it.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Give the kid a break. $300,000 is lesson enough.
If you want to turn the screws on the publishers and say international trade laws are all bullshit and the books worth what it's worth and you're only paying $9 for the Indian version, I assure you they'll just sell it at $90 everywhere in the world and try to deal with the bootlegging in a much less understanding way than they are right now.
I see you replied to my post in another question about why the end consumer shouldn't be able to resell to another country. In cases of one or two books, I don't think anybody really gives a damn, it's when you're putting yourself through college on a publishers dime that they start to get upset and bring up international trade laws against you. I'm pretty sure with how copyright law works in the states and even abroad by distribution channels that this kid is going to be screwed pretty hard.
it's bullshit, of course. too bad for the publishers that books don't come with drm chips.
No, it's too bad for the publishers that they are trying to sell books cheaper inside poorer countries.
My work here is dung.
Every level of the textbook business is about manipulation, lies, and control, from the publisher to the campus bookstore.
I researched the actual cost of textbooks once, and found industry websites with cost breakdowns which swore, up and down, that the profit margin on textbooks was 1%. I shit you not. You buy the 13th edition of your text for a retail price of $298, a book that's been out for 15 years and hundreds of printings, and they expect you to believe that even *now*, on the 13th edition, the publisher made well under $3 per copy.
On the retail side, I worked for a campus bookstore and my wife was their night manager. After they let me off for total lack of available work, I decided to just sell them books I found on ebay and bought from other students. After I sold them several dozen they fired my wife and banned me from the store based on their unwritten and inconsistently enforced policy that a student can sell only one copy of a particular title to them. Why do they care? I have no idea. The only time I sold them books was the two week period after spring semester buyback but before summer classes; I gave them more copies of these books, at prices and quantities they set, during a period when their used stock was already at it's yearly maximum but still not high enough for their liking. There were no other copies for them to acquire from students, and awful NC state laws forbid them from acquiring more used copies on Amazon, eBay, etc. For this they treated me like a criminal, fired my wife, and even made allusions to whether we'd stolen the books despite the fact that there are cameras, audits, and never less than 3 people at the registers.
It was all about control; what I did was good for their business, and they didn't give a shit. I was making money in a place they thought only they were allowed to make money. Even though it made them even more money than it made me, they hated me for it and considered it abusive.
Control, control, control.
How many textbooks did this Thai student actually sell in America? Was it 8,000 textbooks that normally sell for 75 bucks a piece in the U.S.? Or is this yet another case of someone selling a mere "handful" of copyrighted IP - perhaps 10 - 30 units - and getting slapped with a stupidly large six-digit fine for it? U.S. copyright holders, as well as U.S. courts, don't seem to have any sense of proportion when it comes to these things. How can you fine some 600,000 Dollars for something that damaged you to the tune of - maybe - a few hundred dollars, if at all. I hope the Thai kid wins this case. Whatever he did, it can't be worth a 600K fine. Also, if the kid was struggling so much financially that he needed to resort to selling textbooks to get by, how the hell is this kid going to pay the 600K fine?
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
I don't give a shit if the Megacorp doesn't like that I purchased a cheap paperback Indian copy instead of the overpriced, glossybacked American copy. Sucks to be them. It's not my responsibility to bendover and kiss its ass..... it is not my girlfriend. I have every right as a free citizen (not a megacorp slave) to buy the cheapest copy I can find. It's called free trade.
I like how mod my comments are modded as Troll when I'm trying to explain why the situation is what it is yet your profanity laden brash response without any understanding of the concept is moderated as "Insightful."
So this is my problem with Slashdot and why I come back here only to be constantly reminded to stay away and let the people circle jerk with blinders on. I'll let someone else waist their time explaining how the world works to you folk, you clearly never learned to appreciate someone merely relaying the other side of the issue or another viewpoint to you.
Good luck upsetting the publishing business with your brilliant views! Burst forth, you need only say these words and hundreds of years of international copyright law will crumble!
My work here is dung.
... two very important facts: 1.) There is a club and 2.) He's not in it.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Silly man, he did not understand that globalisation is for corporates to exploit, it is not for individuals to benefit from.
Companies do this all the time: buy goods or get them made where ever in the world it is cheapest for them to do so. They then sell them at different prices in different countries: price it too high in India and you don't get sales, price it too low in Europe and you loose potential profit.
They can't possibly have customers doing the same thing - it would damage their profits and the CEO's bonus would have to be cut. So they adopt all manner of tactics to stop us from benefiting from globalisation in the way that they do: * region coding on DVDs, * refusal to service equipment if imported (even if identical ones are sold in the country), sue non approved importers, ... All designed to distort the free market
I would mind paying more for something that I buy in England if it were made with English labour paid English wages. What I object to is them paying third world people slave rates and charging me top dollar - I don't like the hypocrisy of it all.
These are copies of a book *LEGALLY* published and sold by the Asian subsidiaries of US publishing houses. How the f*ck are they illegal? The question is whether or not copyright law can restrict if they can be imported and resold.
Oops, sorry. I fed the troll, didn't I?
Being a student in London UK this all looks incomprehensible to me. I also find it extremely weird that you still like to call your land 'land of the free'. I'd be interested to learn more about this and other US "cartels" in education, media, health and commercial areas.
Actually, the main reason people overseas bought (North) American DVDs was because movies there took forever to arrive, not that they were cheaper (sometimes they were cheaper, but other times not).
It's one of the nails on the HD-DVD coffin - HD-DVD got rid of ALL region protection. Theatre owners in other countries complained to the MPAA because HD-DVD owners were importing HD-DVDs from Amazon.com and the like and watching movies that were still in theatres, or even before the theatrical release!
The studios countered this by releasing HD-DVDs much later (if it was an HD-DVD-only studio, they'd release the DVD early, then HD-DVD 3 months later. If it was Blu-Ray/HD-DVD, they released the Blu-Ray with the DVD, and then later the HD-DVD would come along).
Blu-Ray, having region coding, didn't have this problem at all.
You could have bought the tapes from Canada, eh.
No brain, no pain.
If you think the book is overpriced... Don't buy it!
I don't understand lefties being incapable of understanding that the point of doing business is to make money. Nobody is stopping you from going into business for yourself, or investing in these greedy corporations and sharing some of the dividends.
It's getting to the point that you can never be sure whether a copy is legal or not. If you haven't read the original contract between the author and the publisher and the distributor you cannot be sure if you are acquiring a legal copy. Reading the copyright page in a book does not always state whether it is legal to distribute in such and such a country.
Now if he had pirated the book, since he was a student of few means, he would not be in this situation where he would have the need to sell the book.
If you cannot resell a legally purchased copy then it's best you pirate and be done with it. I don't subscribe to the idea that there is a grey market.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
I still don't understand how we put up with it.
Because you have to. Because you can't afford your own lobbyist.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
>>>A VHS tape labelled "12 hours" in england would be labelled "8.4 hours" in the US
Nope. A tape labled "11.5 hours" in the UK holds exactly 12 hours on U.S. VCRs. I knew exactly what I was getting before I bought it and actual recording confirms I get 12 TV shows per tape. (Aside: In Digital VHS mode these same imported tapes can hold 40 hours of SD video.)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
But how many of the professors are viciously examining text versions and reworking their classes to only use the new pages?
I had a fun variant of this one time when I got hold of a free copy of an older version of a text book (like V2 vs V4) and it was BETTER than the current version! I am a Preface & Introduction junkie, so I compared. The 2nd Ed that I acquired was all "Thanks for da luv in the first edition, here's the second, off you go". The 4th ed went "We have trimmed and tightened the material for maximum educational impact by reducing the extraneous material that might distract from the topic at hand. Then we added more big pictures and huge 3 inch margins on the page."
I used the older copy, kept the new one only to watch for sneak shots, and an hour extra per week I had better context than anyone else in the class because my copy was 5 pages longer per chapter.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The problem in this case is that they have used the power of government to stop others from going into business for themselves and allowing companies to pick and choose its prices based on the wealth of its customers.
Think about it this way. In your town or city, imagine that shops in the richer neighborhoods charged ten times the price for all goods than the same stores in the poor neighborhoods (this would be more efficient for the companies to maximize their profits). Of course, this would not work because people from the rich neighborhoods would shop in the poor stores. Now, imagine that the companies got a law passed that said the everyone would have to show ID and if you lived in the rich areas, then you could not buy from the poor areas. Also, it would be illegal for a poor person buy goods for you. Would this situation be tolerable to you?
Strangely, I see this as a right wing issue. For one, the government is dictating what you can do with your property. Two, the government is forcing people to pay higher prices (perhaps even to left wing publishers and universities). Third, the government regulations are impeding the free market.
Well part of the difference is that a Canadian/Imperial Gallon is 4.5 litres whereas an American Gallon is only 3.8 litres due to their less than pint-sized pints.