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Supreme Court Upholds First Sale Doctrine
langelgjm writes "In a closely-watched case, the U.S. Supreme Court today vindicated the first-sale doctrine, declaring that it "applies to copies of a copyrighted work lawfully made abroad." The case involved a Thai graduate student in the U.S. who sold cheap foreign versions of textbooks on eBay without the publisher's permission. The 6-3 decision has important implications for goods sold online and in discount stores. Justice Stephen Breyer said in his opinion (PDF) that the publisher lost any ability to control what happens to its books after their first sale abroad."
will not stop the publishers from making DMCA requests / filling strikes that can cost you $35 a pop.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a bigger push towards e-books. That is a way around the "problem" for the publishers.
GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
They're not supposed to rule in favor of consumers. Or corporations. They're supposed to rule in "favor" of the law, regardless of which side is popular. The why of a ruling is more important, often, than which side wins and the "right" ruling can be made for the wrong reasons.
This may be one of the most important decisions this court has gotten right in years. This was absolutely huge because of the implications of what would have happened if it had gone the other way. This is critical in terms of the idea of actually owning what you buy, without this manufactures could simply make things out of country and avoid first sale rights. This could have affected pretty much every aspect of Americans daily life and is a good first step in restoring Intellectual Property sanity.
It's funny how property rights have historically been a right wring agenda item until they are shown to be just as important to the left as well...
There will be a huge push now for electronic books under the guise of "convenience" but what it really comes down to is that they will want to "license" the book rather than sell it. At the same time, the electronic versions will simply continue to make the publishers less and less relevant especially for new titles.
You say that, but given some of their more recent decisions this latest decision is still shocking.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
"Seriously? Reselling a physical product you bought legally needed the highest court in the land to adjudicate?"
Yes, it did. BUT, you're wrong about one thing. It isn't the "physical product" that is at issue here. it's the copyrighted work.
This has BIG implications for copyrighted works. In essence, it upholds the 100-year-old rule that says publishers' "terms" bedamned: if you bought it, it's YOURS. You can sell it, burn it, or whatever you want.
Although lower courts have upheld First Sale Doctrine re: copyrighted software for resale on Ebay and Amazon, it was reaffirmed here by the Supreme Court.
So unless you have an existing contract with the publisher when you buy software, you can pretty much ignore their "license agreement". You bought it, it's yours. Once you have paid for it, you can do whatever you want with it, regardless of any "license agreement" inside the box or in a popup window. But you still can't legally distribute copies without the copyright holder's permission.
If only they wrote a dissenting opinion. I guess we'll never know what they were thinking!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Guise of convenience? I'm pretty sure they really are more convenient...
Electronic copies can be more convenient. But currently, they are not. Why are they not more convenient? Well let me see if I can find a source... Oh yes here it is:
I can easily break the DRM on my books so that I have backups...
If you notice, this person here has to run cracking software just to get their files to play nicely and not destroy itself if this person tries to do the basic tasks of backup or use on an 'unauthorized device'.
You see, they can be more convenient, but they are not. The eBook market is a minefield of incompatibility and artificial restriction. It takes away huge capabilities present in real books, and offers it back in a crippled/reduced capacity and calls it a 'bonus feature'.
Want to give your book to a friend? Hand it to them. Done.
Want to give your eBook to a friend? Well, first lets understand what format of eBook you have, which vendor did you purchase it from. Depending on the vendor, and their software, you might be able to lend it, but only once, or not at all. I'm not sure. Oh wait, your friend is using this specific type of software right? Oh he isn't? Well, guess you can't lend it to him. So he wants to use the software, hope he agrees to all the terms and conditions associated with the use of such software.
Am I exaggerating? A little... No wait, I'm not exaggerating at all, it really is a mass of incompatible formats, competing ecosystems, overly-limited 'rights', and flawed laws which make even your simple 'remove the DRM' action illegal (depending on how cranky a prosecutor is on a given day)
eBooks SHOULD be more convenient, but right now they certainly are not.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj