Supreme Court To Hear First Sale Doctrine Case 242
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?"
The priests of the moldering document (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
could mean the death of us manufacturing (Score:5, Insightful)
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,
Re:could mean the death of us manufacturing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Great Cases and Bad Law (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Easy answer.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:It would be a reason to buy American (Score:5, Insightful)
Constitution is NOT a living document (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Constitution is NOT a living document (Score:4, Insightful)
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..
You can firmly believe that but you would be wrong. The intentionally made the words vague, ensuring that the courts and your legislators would have to interpret it according to their judgment.
They want to have their cake and eat it too (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:Constitution is NOT a living document (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Great Cases and Bad Law (Score:5, Insightful)
...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.
Re:Note that the question before the Court... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's also not "is there an inherent property right to sell one's property, without interference from other people". It's sad and depressing that our freedoms have fallen so low that we have to beg the government kindly to permit us to sell our property.
Re:Constitution is NOT a living document (Score:5, Insightful)
"I firmly believe that the founding fathers intended for the constitution to be "as is". Black and White"
What the hell means "a is"? It is obvious that the text is not so clear that it only admits one interpretation, so what do you really mean?
Oh, I know: "I firmly believe that the founding fathers intended for the constitution to be as Cutting_Crew reads it".
Re:Constitution is NOT a living document (Score:5, Insightful)
The Constituion contains the mechanism for amending it. It's not supposed to be done by executive order, a simple majority vote in Congress, or judicial fiat.
This is not a piece of code, it's a law. Unfortunately it needs to be interpreted and it stops working when it is interpreted badly (maybe it is like interpreted code?)
You know, like 100 bajilion dollars for downloading 10 songs still has to be interpreted as "cruel and unusual" to be unconstitutional.
Or like current administration arguing that placing you on a "kill list" is fine because it is "due process", just not judicial, reviewed or in any way transparent. But still "due".
Or judges accepting that your "documents" can't be searched, but when they are sent by email or stored on your phone, suddenly that doesn't count as "papers" because they are electronic. Similarly, you cannot be search unless a police dog barks at you/your car. Once the dog barks, the constitutional limits are lifted for some reason.
Or successfully arguing that copyright limits are "limited" as long as they are finite (so "unlimited" is unconstitutional, but extend by 20 years every 20 years is fine)
Or court accepting that administration can wait a few years until the constitutional review of a detention (Jose Padilla) and then transfer that prisoner from military to civil confinement one day before review and claim that the case is now "moot" since the prisoner is no longer in military confinement.
I could go on.
Re:Easy answer.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would abstract that principle even further. If a corporation is free to move manufacturing overseas where it's cheaper, then likewise people should be free to buy products overseas for cheaper and import them into the U.S. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Re:Constitution is NOT a living document (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, it's the "authoritarian agenda" that wants the Constitution to be treated like the Bible -- that is, as the revealed word of God, which admits of no interpretation but must be slavishly followed in the most literal way possible. Daddy is never wrong, and Daddy has foreseen all things in advance, so you shouldn't need to do any thinking for yourself.
So how does that work? The "authoritarian agenda" as you put it is naturally constrained by what is actually in the US Constitution (which is mostly a delineation of powers and other restrictions on government). That means the authority such as it is rests in the US Constitution (which incidentally makes the above agenda something other than "authoritarian").
But with an interpretation that isn't rigorous, the interpreter has the authority. We can see what happens in that case when, for example, the US Supreme Court elects a US president or makes law. Or in an extreme case, true authoritarian regimes where the law means whatever those in power say it means.
And what happens when our interpretations differ, say because we chose the interpretations that were most convenient to our interests at the time? Then it becomes a game of getting judges to agree with you.
A key difference between the Bible and the US Constitution is that the former consists of a bunch of fixed but differing works. There is no true means for revising the Bible. Don't like the genocide of the Great Flood? You can't just excise it from all those bibles out there.You can print your own version without that story, but you can't change what has already been published or which version people chose to read. Or you can choose to interpret the story in a way that is more compatible with your sensibilities, but again you can't change how other people chose to interpret the Bible.
The US Constitution on the other hand comes with ways to modify the document, including a radical overhaul of the whole thing (the "Constitutional Convention"). There is need for exegesis, but not a need for reinterpreting the Constitution to suit your whim.
Re:Constitution is NOT a living document (Score:5, Insightful)