Supreme Court & reselling your car, iPhones, books, etc

[Dhiana]

http://www.marke****ch.com/story/your-right-to-resell-your-own-stuff-is-in-peril-2012-10-04?link=home_carousel

Interesting article on reselling what we already own could effect everything from eBay to thrift stores to car sales to even home sales.

Hopefully it won't come to pass, I couldn't imagine having to send a cut of something I supposedly already owned.
It would really effect the value of anything new purchased such as a car if you knew you had to send a cut of the sale when you
sold the used vehicle in 10 years time.


Note: It turns out that market watch.com(all one word) is a partially sensored word??? Since I don't click on links that I can't fully read I thought I would add this clarification for other readers so if you choose to click the link you know where you are going.

[razz]

Couldn't open using the link as is.

[creaker]

If you don't mind hitting a tinyurl link:

http://tinyurl.com/8kb38x3

And if you don't know what first-sale doctrine is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

This has the potential of putting every used and 2nd hand reseller out of business. As well as encouraging companies to produce their products overseas so they don't fall under the first-sale doctrine.

CHICAGO (Marke****ch) — Tucked into the U.S. Supreme Court’s agenda this fall is a little-known case that could upend your ability to resell everything from your grandmother’s antique furniture to your iPhone 4.

At issue in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons is the first-sale doctrine in copyright law, which allows you to buy and then sell things like electronics, books, artwork and furniture, as well as CDs and DVDs, without getting permission from the copyright holder of those products.

Under the doctrine, which the Supreme Court has recognized since 1908, you can resell your stuff without worry because the copyright holder only had control over the first sale.

Put simply, though Apple Inc. (US:AAPL) has the copyright on the iPhone and Mark Owen has it on the book “No Easy Day,” you can still sell your copies to whomever you please whenever you want without retribution.

That’s being challenged now for products that are made abroad, and if the Supreme Court upholds an appellate court ruling, it would mean that the copyright holders of anything you own that has been made in China, Japan or Europe, for example, would have to give you permission to sell it.

“It means that it’s harder for consumers to buy used products and harder for them to sell them,” said Jonathan Band, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries and the Association for Research Libraries. “This has huge consumer impact on all consumer groups.”

Another likely result is that it would hit you financially because the copyright holder would now want a piece of that sale.

It could be your personal electronic devices or the family jewels that have been passed down from your great-grandparents who immigrated from Spain. It could be a book that was written by an American writer but printed and bound overseas, or an Italian painter’s artwork.

There are implications for a variety of wide-ranging U.S. entities, including libraries, musicians, museums and even resale juggernauts eBay Inc. (US:EBAY) and Craigslist. U.S. libraries, for example, carry some 200 million books from foreign publishers.

“It would be absurd to say anything manufactured abroad can’t be bought or sold here,” said Marvin Ammori, a First Amendment lawyer and Schwartz Fellow at the New American Foundation who specializes in technology issues.

The case stems from Supap Kirtsaeng’s college experience. A native of Thailand, Kirtsaeng came to America in 1997 to study at Cornell University. When he discovered that his textbooks, produced by Wiley, were substantially cheaper to buy in Thailand than they were in Ithaca, N.Y., he rallied his Thai relatives to buy the books and ship them to him in the United States.

[ApatheticNoMore]

It seems unenforcable anyway, all the more so if you don't obey it.

[Tammy]

This could fuel the bartering economy. Call it a gift. And trade gifts ...

[Miss Cellane]

What confuses me about this is that many of the things mentioned in the article are not copyrighted--they are patented. If the legal case is just about copyrighted material, copyright covers the written word, and music and art. Not inventions like iPhones and cars and furniture. Those are covered by patents.

Now, it could be that the writer is extrapolating to a "worst case" scenario, where, if copyrighted material is subject to these charges, then eventually the law regarding patents will also be changed.

So I can see this suit affecting used book stores, but not the average thrift store. And copyright and patents expire at some point. Antiques would eventually be exempt, because the patent would have expired.

I think there is a germ of truth in the article, especially this part: "There are implications for a variety of wide-ranging U.S. entities, including libraries, musicians, museums and even resale juggernauts eBay Inc. (US:EBAY) and Craigslist. U.S. libraries, for example, carry some 200 million books from foreign publishers."

But the results of this lawsuit, either way, shouldn't affect "grandma's jewels" or your old smartphone.

[jp1]

http://www.marke****ch.com/story/your-right-to-resell-your-own-stuff-is-in-peril-2012-10-04?link=home_carousel


Note: It turns out that market watch.com(all one word) is a partially sensored word???

t w a t ...

[jp1]

A more logical ruling, at least in my opinion, would have been to rule only regarding goods originally SOLD in foreign countries and then re-sold here, as opposed to just manufactured abroad. Or perhaps even more importantly, only to goods resold at a higher price then the original foreign purchase price.

[creaker]

A more logical ruling, at least in my opinion, would have been to rule only regarding goods originally SOLD in foreign countries and then re-sold here, as opposed to just manufactured abroad. Or perhaps even more importantly, only to goods resold at a higher price then the original foreign purchase price.

I don't like it - it's kind of like government enforced economic feudalism. Corporations can go across the world to find the cheapest labor, loosest regulations, lowest taxes - and then sell the same product in one country for $x dollars and here for $3x dollars and have our government make it illegal for us to take advantage of that $x price elsewhere. Not to mention making it illegal to resell any 2nd hand copywritten product unless the owner of the copyright has the opportunity to profit from it again.

[peggy]

I don't like it - it's kind of like government enforced economic feudalism. Corporations can go across the world to find the cheapest labor, loosest regulations, lowest taxes - and then sell the same product in one country for $x dollars and here for $3x dollars and have our government make it illegal for us to take advantage of that $x price elsewhere. Not to mention making it illegal to resell any 2nd hand copywritten product unless the owner of the copyright has the opportunity to profit from it again.

Nailed it!