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Supreme Court To Hear First Sale Doctrine Case
Registered Coward v2 writes "The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear a case to determine how copyright law and the doctrine of first sale applies to copyrighted works bought overseas, then imported to the U.S. and then re-sold. The case involves a foreign student who imported textbooks from Asia and the resold them in the U.S. to help fund his education. He was sued by the publisher, lost, and was ordered to pay $600,000 in damages. Now SCOTUS gets to weigh in on the issue. 'The idea -- upheld by the Supreme Court since 1908 -- is that once a copyright holder legally sells a product initially, the ownership claim is then exhausted, giving the buyer the power to resell, destroy, donate, whatever. It's a limited idea -- involving only a buyer's distribution right, not the power to reproduce that DVD or designer dress for sale. ... The tricky part is whether that first-sale doctrine applies to material both manufactured and first purchased outside the United States. Federal law gives that authority to a purchaser's work "lawfully made under this title." Does "this title" apply to any copyrighted work — whether manufactured all or in part in the United States and around the world?"
"Great cases like hard cases make bad law. For great cases are called great, not by reason of their importance... but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgment."
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
As if EULA on software wasn't bad enough...
Pacifist paratroopers yell, "Ghandi!" when they jump.
Do they ever make great rulings or do they make rulings out of whim and perhaps tradition? Those quislings and they are if you consider them traitors to the people suck up to government and corporations and do so time and time again.
It is getting worse and the document is rotting further. There's such a weight of precedent and wheedling and interpretation that you cannot read the constitution and know what the court might yield.
We should be able to individually vote to dismiss those priests and if that happens they lose everything, health care, retirement, ability to every work for government or hold a position of public trust or profit or to work for any entity that takes government money.
Since this is not about that moldering document, it's about the living fiction then they should be hung by it at the displeasure of the citizen.
If first sale is held not to apply to goods manufactured outside the United States, every product we buy will be accompanied by a non transferable shrink wrap license,
All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.
The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favour of bourgeois property.
The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.
We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.
Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.
Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?
But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.
To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.
Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power.
When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.
Let us now take wage-labour.
The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, i.e., that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the wage-labourer appropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it.
In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.
In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.
And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.
By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying.
But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying disappears also
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I think the case is ridiculous, but courts are famously lacking in common sense sometimes. If the defendant loses, I wonder if one of the unintended consequences would be to spur more sales of products 'Made In The USA'.
Yes, first sale doctrine applies in this case. It's a no-brainer. Nobody here or in the court will be thinking about whether or not the foreign student stole the textbooks - because he did not. Nobody is accusing him of copying. Nobody is saying the items are counterfeit. The whole point of this case will be to try to figure out a tricky legal way to accuse the student of stealing. That is the only reason for debate. The 'under this title' part of the reasoning for debate is moot anyway since the law is meant to be applied equally - and equal application would mean 'lawfully made under this title' when the law agrees in both governing states (which is not even being argued.)
The doctrine of first sale is a simple idea and concept - one that can apply easily in courts around the country and the world. The biggest problem we are all worried about is if our corrupt Surpreme Court will once again come up with complicated 'reasoning' to decide yet another case where the big corporation beats the young entrepreneur. If I want to copyright my apples and sell them for 1 penny in China and $3000 in Canada, why should I have any further control over the people in China realizing my ridiculous pricing? Free market capitalism and globalism needs to go both ways. If a corporation is free to charge different prices, the consumers or middle men should be free to resell them - until the price points meet market demands.
What the Supreme Court should do is morally, lawfully, and reasonably easy to decide. What they will do is a big fucking can of worms because of the current move toward corporatism.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Corporatism can't enjoy tax-free offshore AND onshore exceptionalism to in-situ laws native where their products may roam regardless if Kryptonite, Muscovite or Israelite in composition. To do otherwise, reduces a set of laws to mere rules. Rules define play. Playing the legal system is just gaming it. SCOTUS decides Robert's court or Kangaroo court for Globalism sake.
The first is, if copyright doesn't apply in the US then the copyright holder has no right to prohibit resale.
If copyright DOES apply in the US and the product was legally obtained (regardless of location) then the original copyright holder should again have NO right to prohibit resale, applying the first sale doctrine.
Where this gets interesting is, will this ruling apply to ANYTHING manufactured overseas that has any type of copyright, such as computing devices and automobiles? Imagine not being able to sell your 4-5 year old car to buy a newer model. How will this ruling apply to things such as the secondary market for used CDs (many of which are imported)?
I'm very curious as to how this is going to play out.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
Crap like this, no wonder we have angry armed mobs in front of our embassies. This was not only a wrongheaded suit but obnoxious in application. If the publishers want to discriminate regionally, then they should bear the burden of regional versions (less desirable in US, at least for textbooks). Trampling our US first sale rights isn't going to be acceptable. Crucifying some little entrepreneur like that with bogus double dipping "corporate rights", no wonder the US has endless enemies.
Throughout history from the very first time a product was sold for differing prices a middleman has bought them up in one place and sold them in another where he can make a profit. I will lose what little faith I have left in our legal system if they convict this kid.
I firmly believe that the founding fathers intended for the constitution to be "as is". Black and White. It means what it says and trying to conjure up a ruling because times change a little bit doesn't give any court the right or power to use a personal interpretation to make a ruling. Why do I believe this? Well they also gave the power to add, remove, amend the constitution through a very lengthy process. This tells me that changing the constitution in any way was very important and it was not meant to be arbitrarily changed at a whim or misinterpreted by someones prejudice. Think about it - technically any judge on any court can say , "well i interpret this to mean that so I am ruling X". That gives too much power to judges and I think most of us here understand that the founders didn't want this..
textbooks are about profit and changing them very fast
You can't declare that ownership laws in another country apply to you when they protect you (e.g. copyright law) and at the same time declare that they don't apply to you when they protect someone else. This would be a slam-dunk case if not for certain Supreme Court Justices who can't help but give big slobbery kisses to any corporation that gives them the time of day.
Rob
First sale doctrine should certainly apply. What if someone writes a book in swedish produced and sold only in Sweden. To say a purchaser can't sell the book after moving to the US defies common sense.
When I went to grad school for EE, I think about 3/4 of my textbooks had a "can only purchse in India, Bangladesh, Singapore, etc" note on them. They were often paperback, with poor paper and ink quality, but thery had all the information that the $300 book at the campus bookstore had, for around $20. I look at this kind of like the presceiption drug thing, we design or write) the product here in the US, and make the US market pay for nearly all the r&d costs, as well as all the marketing and profiteering costs
ban professors from ripping pages out of books to get a grade or forcing you to buy the book + online tests. make that you only can pay a small fee to cover the costs of on line testing / homework system with a price cap.
also force professors to let you use old editions as most of them are the same other then moving stuff around and different questions. And some classes don't even need the books at all.
...is not "Should the first sale doctrine apply to imported books". It is "Does the first sale doctrine apply to imported books". I think that we can all agree that it should, but the Court will have to try to figure out whether or not the Congress intended that it should. To do this they will (among other things) inquire into the legislative history of the copyright statute.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I love this quote:
The whole idea of the copyright laws is to provide people with an incentive to create books, movies, or other works of art. If you take away that incentive, you're not going to have creators out there doing things that give us pleasure or educate us.
There is always an issue with absolutes like "take away". There is still incentive but perhaps less. Maybe there will be less incentive to make new editions that consist of a few page changes and different examples.
It would seem that the publisher is quite happy with the cut they get from foreign distribution at lower prices and seem to be making a profit or they would not be doing it. The re-sale restriction just gives local monopolies to licensed publishers so they can demand the maximum possible price. It has nothing to do with supplying lower cost books where needed but maximizing profit where possible. Profit is not bad but gouging on required text books is.
Wish I had mod points now, mod parent insightful
The First Sale doctrine is irrelevant to this case due to Congress's control of the borders. If these imports fall under Congress's authority to regulate imports, the appeal ends there just like Roberts's decision on the health care mandate falling under the Congressional power to lay taxes.
* Are the books being imported into the US? Yes.
* Can Congress regulate what may be imported into the US, and in what circumstances? Yes.
I predict a short decision along that line by the court's right wing, with the court's left wing writing a separate and contradictory concurrence about how these laws help the copyright industry and therefore are constitutional. One or two neoconfederates in the right wing may write a dissent about property rights.
The tricky part is whether that first-sale doctrine applies to material both manufactured and first purchased outside the United States.
Does "this title" apply to any copyrighted work — whether manufactured all or in part in the United States and around the world?
The "tricky part" is that maybe it doesn't. The straightforward part is that it should. If it doesn't, fix the law so that it works as it should.
Bang.
This is the point that is often overlooked.
Here's Conneticut vs Fourntin -
http://womenriseupnow.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/state-of-connecticut-v-fourtin/
Everyone is screaming "travesty" - I am digging around trying to find the awful case that results if the ruling went the other way.
However Slashdot threads are only good for 2 days anyway so I won't find it before everyone leaves anyway.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
1. How is this different to having an agent buy the books second hand overseas and having an agent bring them into the US? Because if it is different, then the point of sale must be proven.
2. If point 1 is found not to be different, then this would be a major rewrite of internet sales laws.
3. What about patented pharmaceuticals? I could imagine that big pharma might want some input into reselling of their patented drugs back into the US.
4. Isn't it time we started a political movement to shorten copyright & patent terms, and to reduce rights?
prices are set at what the market can bare, so in poor countries the profit margin maybe lower than in rich countries
so the rich and poor both get books and the producer gets a decent average profit, each paying to their ability
when that is bypassed by someone parallel importing, the price set to the same worldwide it need to got up to get
the same profit, thus the rich countries get it cheaper, the poor countries more expensive maybe to point of not buying at all
that is of course depending on the naive assumption that the the profit is set at a resonable level required to make
producing books worth while
same issue for medicine, is it bad that some medicine is sold at close to cost in poor countries and the profit and development
cost made up by charging more in rich countries?
"why should ... a thousand miles away." The framers DID account for that, by making a FEDERAL government, not a national one. The people a thousand miles away have only the enumerated powers, with all other powers reserved to the states and the people.
That's how the Constitution avoids having people a thousand miles away make your decisions for you, NOT by having judges make up the law as they go along.
because it's hard to compete against a nation where piracy is commonplace. The best they can do is come near $0 - $0.01 as you state. I doubt piracy/ knock-offs was part of the free-market/ capitalism.
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re "However Slashdot threads are only good for 2 days anyway so I won't find it before everyone leaves anyway", I agree with you. It's annoying because I found (through a backlink from a reply to my comment to another comment to a fairly recent story) that I could not submit a response to a /. story that was just barely 2 weeks old because the article had already been "archived" and would not allow for any more postings.
.
WTF? So someone who cares enough to follow an interesting story and may have something very on-point to contribute can't add anything? If they're worried about spammers, they could limit additions to articles greater than a few days old to higher-karma posters or to logged in posters only (allowing them anonymity as needed), but just outright denying them access to post?
What if I'd missed reading /. for a few days and was just browsing back day by day and found something interesting? It's sad, but I have to agree with your conclusion that these threads are only good for a couple of days.
Purely looking at the law, I'd likely agree with you, but reimportation is more complicated than it appears on the surface.
Let's establish some givens:
1. Publishers are out to maximize profits, and
2. Regional pricing gives greater access to consumers in poorer countries.
If reimportation were to be fully legal, these US companies, whose greatest profit comes from domestic sales, would be far more likely to raise export prices to match domestic prices and cope with decreased export sales than to depress what is their most lucrative stream of revenue by lowering domestic prices to compete with reimported goods. The consequence then is that the poorest consumers would find themselves priced out of the market, and because this case deals with books it has the secondary effect of limiting the availability of education and empowerment which the poorest people most need.
Unless the government is prepared to intervene dramatically in how companies operate and implement price ceilings to equalize all prices across regions, the most likely result we'll see from this is that prices of export US goods will increase, making them less competitive globally, resulting in less choice for international consumers and less export revenue for the US, and all this in a time when the US can least afford a decrease in economic influence or an expansion of trade deficit.
It won't be an easy decision for the Supreme Court to make, there will be a great fight between moralists and pragmatists, and rest assured the White House and Congress will be on the side of maintaining illegality.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Read poster's previous history - a shill. Communism has yet to work because those in a place of leadership corrupt the system, and the individual still gets screwed - pretty much the hallmark of all systems today.
I can't tell if you're serious or just an exquisite troll.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
That is a shitty law allows unfair price discrimination. Why should different people get different prices on mass produced items like books solely based on what country they live in?
According to that law what he did is piracy, but any sane person would say it's not. Of course, I'm sure some economist or businessman could give a very convincing yet convoluted logic that would justify this type of price discrimination.
Therefore, although she was indeed physically helpless in the ordinary sense of the term, she was not physically helpless for purposes of the statute.), and State v. Bucknell, 144 Wn. App. 524, 529â"30, 183 P.3d 1078 (2008)
.
There also seems to be a bizarre point about whether or not the victim had been taught any sexual information in the sense that if they didn't know about it how could they deny consent for it? Would that be the break that would allow the rape of children who had not yet been taught the facts of life and/or were brought up to respect authority?
Slashdot is upvoting the Communist Manifesto? That's unexpected.
(funnily enough, the marxists.org page, which hosts the Manifesto, claims copyright over the document! It's probably over the translation, but still hilariously hypocrite)
Dilbert RSS feed
"Do what thou wilt"
So they can do whatever they want. Thread over.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
> All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.
American property law acknowledges precedents that stretch back into the middle ages. This isn't France where they declare a new Constitution every 3 years.
Americans at large buy too much into the notion fed to us by our public schools that American history doesn't extend back much further than 1776. This isn't the case at all.
It takes a long time for democracy to germinate as it did in our own case. That's why attempts at "nation building" are less satisfying than we hope. We go into with a bogus set of assumptions and a gross misunderstanding of even our own history.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The manufacturers charge high prices in the US because they can get away with it. Forget about books, think about what this could mean to pharmaceuticals or electronics retailing; the US has been subsidizing those products forever.
wrapped in brown paper and with a lock on it. You're only selling the paper that's its written on, the lock protects the written stuff. Not you problem it the buyer breaks the lock after purchase.
Or if you're selling it why not state I'm selling the paper from this book. Its up to the buyer to not read the copyrighted print.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Read poster's previous history - a shill.
Communism has yet to work because those in a place of leadership corrupt the system, and the individual still gets screwed - pretty much the hallmark of all systems today.
Communism has yet to work because humans are selfish to a greater or lesser degree. There is not one human being on this Earth, that is not selfish to some extent. A certain amount of selfishness is necessary for survival. A dog will growl at you and may even bite, if you try to take its food away from it. It is when selfishness turns into greed, all distribution of wealth problems begin. Taking things away from those who want to work and giving it to those who are lazy and don't want to work brings a society or culture to a halt, whether that society is human or a beehive or ant colony.
A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.
Of course Apple owns the iPhone's intellectual property. If anything, FoxConn has to license IP from Apple for the purposes of manufacturing Apple's stuff. That license dictates, among other things, that no iPhones will exit the back door.
As a contractor of Apple, FoxConn needs no license to handle Apple IP. The Apple-FoxConn contract would not give FoxConn any rights (which is what a license does), it would have FoxConn acknowledge that FoxConn has no rights at all to Apple's IP and that FoxConn will respect and protect Apple's IP and handle that IP only in ways directed by Apple.
If FoxConn were selling a product with Apple IP to a 3rd party then FoxConn would need a license.
If something - a book, cell phone, car - is manufactured outside the US for export to the US, is it being sold outside the US to the importer.
Unless you are dealing with a multinational corporation and a product is being transferred from one regional unit of the multinational to another regional unit of the multinational. The product never leaves the hands of the IP's owner, the multinational.
weird, my hard copy translation of his and Engel's works does not contain any copyright notices.
Communism has yet to work because humans are selfish to a greater or lesser degree.
Actually, being selfish is not a problem, because in general, what goes around comes around, and most people understand that. The problem is to let that people come into power who don't understand this. One way to avoid this is, not to fall for the vanguard party bullshit that Marx proclaimed and that we have seen in the so called "communist" countries in the east, where in the end a few ruled over the masses and exploited the system for their own good - just like in capitalism.
Costco lost a similar lawsuit, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_S.A._v._Costco_Wholesale_Corp.
I've bought textbooks from overseas before as they were 1/4 the cost of a one here and nearly identical (paper is cheaper, quality control is non-existent and rarely some chapters/questions are different). The textbook explicitly says not for purchase or resale outside of India (or whatever country).
He made $37,000 in revenue according to the article -- this isn't just a few books, this is an import business he set up. In this case, the student bought and sold them for profit. This is clearly trying to circumvent the publisher's distribution methods.
The publishers are douches for marking them up massively for first world countries, but it's their right and they're within the law to do this. They rightfully went after him. Will they get paid? Highly unlikely, but at least they prevent copycats.
Again I think the publishers are dicks for gouging students, but, until a law is passed preventing this, or another method of textbook distribution is created, they can do this.
Ok, so you sell it for less if the people can't afford it. But if they can afford it you sell it for more. Why does that sound like price gouging?
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
Wow. I've never heard of that before (ripping pages from the book). That's seriously fucked up. I would never take a class from a professor like that (would drop the class if I was already in it) and I would make sure the whole internet knows about that professor.
Communism = equality at the lowest common denominator. The ideology disincentivizes progress and individual exceptionalism. At best, society stagnates. At worst, it falls apart due to corruption.
The problem is man. Has been. Always will be. You can take man away from nature, but you can't take nature away from man. We are our own worst enemy.
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Churchill - 1947
Life is not for the lazy.
"The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage . . ."
This seems to be a novel way of finding an average. Is this some communist form of math I have not been previously aware of?
It becomes another form of communism where the common citizen owns nothing which generates wealth. The current corporatocracy is a form of feudalism where the working class has no social or economic power.
Everybody suffered equally, when marxism attempted to eliminate the wealth generation derived from owning property.
I was at Cornell a few years before this guy started his thing. I had to buy books from either the Cornell Campus Store or Triangle Books down in collegetown. I blame the Cornell Campus Store for this.
CCC ripped you off on the sale and on the buyback. Triangle was cheaper, slightly. I heard Triangle went out of business around that time.
The students from foreign countries often did buy the overseas versions of the textbooks because it was a lot cheaper.
What else would you do if annual tuition is basically the 20% downpayment on a house (and still is)?
American property law acknowledges precedents that stretch back into the middle ages.
And it revokes them too. Explicitly.
This isn't France where they declare a new Constitution every 3 years.
Maybe we should, or at least 30, rather than going on 300.
Americans at large buy too much into the notion fed to us by our public schools that American history doesn't extend back much further than 1776. This isn't the case at all.
Americans at large buy too much into superficial notions of history without examination of details that really need to be gone into.
It takes a long time for democracy to germinate as it did in our own case. That's why attempts at "nation building" are less satisfying than we hope. We go into with a bogus set of assumptions and a gross misunderstanding of even our own history.
Maybe if we spent more time building our own nation.
the one who spends the most money on litigation and lobbyists.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
You do understand that beside natives there was no one in what is today the USA, and no, native law did not made it into american law.
While communism deserves much criticism the use of copyright for a website citing the communist manifesto is not a good one. Copyright has utility beyond simple property assertion. The very notion that copyright asserts property is a distorted and inflated idea in the current mindset due to recent tech developments making duplication easier. Copyright also provides some utility in perserving the integrity of a particular expression as well as proper attribution. If there were no copyright then laws or rules strengthening the ability to control one's own work would be needed. Just because profit, profit, and profit is the only standard we are seemingly allowed to consider in our day blinds many to the fact that copyright as written was also about controlling the author's expression for other than financial gain.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" shows that Communism must lead to totalitarian regime. Atrocities of Stalin, Lenin, Mao and Red Khmers were not "errors", they were natural consequence of the essence of Communism.
Greed and laziness will ensure that most people would overestimate their needs and underestimate their abilities. This would require some external judgement, by the state, by the party, by the system. So, basically someone else would judge how much you can work and enforce that you work that much. Similarily someone would have to assess your needs and provide you with goods according to this. So the result is that an individual cannot decide for himself, which would be... slavery?
And in fact, apart from short periods of enthusiasm e.g. right after WW2, all communist states were founded on slavery, both hidden (compulsory employment) and official (e.g. Gulag).
The best that can be expected from the Supreme What is that they come down firmly in the middle of an obvious question.
E Proelio Veritas.
That you can string words together does not imply that you can form a coherent thought.
For instance:
If the average were the minimum, then all work for pay ("wage-labour") would be exactly the same. (You are bright enough to do the math, aren't you?) But living expenses vary with location (for instance, by necessity, someone in Manitoba pays more for heat than someone in Florida). So if the person in Manitoba earns just enough to live, that same amount of money provides the Floridian with money to spare. Conversely, if the Floridian gets just enough to live, the Manitoban dies and nobody could live there.
Flaws in your excuse for logic notwithstanding, you are completely divorced from reality. Very few people live in a place without a TV, and of those fewer still can't afford one. Same for telephones. Neither is a necessity for life. Thus even if your argument for "bare existence" were valid, the number of people to whom it could apply is vanishingly small.
You need to know what is real and how things work before you spout off. You need to use your mind to observe and test your theories, not blabber whatever your biassed teacher has pumped into your skull.
While you're at it, look up the definition of "quantum"
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Only the designer's trademark (and that ONLY being their logo brand) are covered. Copying a dress design is perfectly legal. Copyrights do not cover fashion. Nor trademarks nor patents.
Currently Amazon sells import CD's of music from Europe where copyright of recorded material expires after 50 years, in the US it is after 70 years. So Amazon is selling sets of great music (including recordings of Miles Davis, Elvis Presley, Johny Cash, Zoot Simms John Coltrane, Frank Sinatra, etc) from the 50's made legally in Europe as public domain, but under copyright in the US. If this studend is found guilty, it would seem Amazon must be also. Check out this set of 8 Ellington albums for $15 http://www.amazon.com/8-Classic-Albums-Duke-Ellington/dp/B006UFCFBQ made in Europe, available for purchase in the US.
If I buy legitimate (not counterfeit) product from China, import it to USA and then sell it, do I need the permission of the IP owner to do so? Isn't that what parallel importing is?
I would imagine music by Elvis Presley sold in the USA would still be getting royalties paid on it.
You know, since he is 2nd on the Dead Celebrity rich list http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/forbes-15-richest-dead-celebrities-list-2011-top-earning-celebs-2852059.html
I doubt it. According to the New York TImes: "Copyright protection lasts only 50 years in European Union countries, compared with 95 years in the United States, even if the recordings were originally made and released in America. So recordings made in the early- to mid-1950's -- by figures like Maria Callas, Elvis Presley and Ella Fitzgerald -- are entering the public domain in Europe, opening the way for any European recording company to release albums that had been owned exclusively by particular labels. Although the distribution of such albums would be limited to Europe in theory, record-store chains and specialty outlets in the United States routinely stock foreign imports." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/03/world/companies-in-us-sing-blues-as-europe-reprises-50-s-hits.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
Marxists.org puts a copyleft notice on 'The communist manifesto'. Even that is kind of ridiculous, since it was published in 1848 (yes, including the English translation), and even Disney wouldn't claim it was still in copyright.
I'll bite.
Explain to the prostitute why she should freely give of her labour if not for some tangible reward. You may argue that prostitution will cease when there is no need for money to survive but the demand will remain so long as there are men who are unable to find a woman who will have them freely and there will always be some significant number of people who are willing to work for personal advantage.
Even a small child figures out the basic premises of trade once they learn that other people have things that they value. Communism requires a post-scarcity culture to be even remotely viable and that still does not remove the desire to have more than one's neighbours. Capitalism does a better job of capturing human nature, It's not the fault of the system that humans are brutish, merely a factor that must be mitigated, the preferred method being uniformly applied laws, all others having proved worse. Both Smith and Marx understood that the capitalists cannot be trusted to act in the best interests of society, only their solutions differ. That of Marx requires, IMO, significant wishful thinking about human nature.