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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?"
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,
How much of what is purchased in the US is actually made in the US?
That should be 1/2 of the problem solved.
How far down the rabbit hole will this go?
Order a car part from Germany and then find out you don't need it, can you sell it? Legally?
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!
No, I think it would rather lead to an increase of products 'made anywhere' but 'sold in the USA' by a company the copyright holder approves of, thereby leading to neither lower prices nor better availability.
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..
...they'll probably say that it's not their job to decide whether the law is stupid or unjust.
And it isn't. The legislature makes the law, and the courts just figure out how it applies to each case.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.