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piranhaof course, i'd have said, since we're talking actual physical goods, not ebooks or software (don't get me started!) -- this is actually under question?
oh yes, it is. and to me it seems to not have attracted enough attention in the mainstream media so far -- which is how the MPAA, RIAA and their ilk like it.
the US supreme court is set to hear argument in "kirtsaeng v john wiley & sons" starting on october 29th. thai student supang kirtsaeng, while studying in the US, discovered that the expensive textbooks required for his courses could be bought much cheaper in thailand. so he had his relatives buy and ship them to him. being an enterprising young man, he then built a business on this discrepancy by selling textbooks on ebay, where publisher wiley & sons took notice and sued him for copyright infringement. which they won in the lower courts.
and that opens a nasty can of worms, which could lead to your next ebay -- or garage -- sale being illegal, depending on whether the items you sell were made abroad. there is a thing called the "doctrine of first sale" in the US limiting copyright and trademark rights, which means you can resell any copyrighted item if you have bought it legally, without permission or any further payment to the copyright owner. the US supreme court affirmed this right in 1998, regarding goods manufactured in the US, even if they were originally sold abroad.
but when it comes to products sold in foreign markets, there's also a statute concerning imports (and when reading this, you can immediately tell which industry had extraordinary influence in its creation). which is how supang kirtsaeng ended up getting sued. ok, you could say that kirtsaeng was acting more like an importer than an individual, but the law doesn't actually make a distinction between selling one ipad (assembled in china) and thousands. huge secondary markets rely on the doctrine of first sale -- i have no idea what percentage of the economy, but it's got to be significant. ebay, craigslist, amazon market, goodwill, the salvation army -- oh, and libraries could be affected.
so yeah, y'all need to pay attention to this one. i find it ridiculous that certain intellectual property owners want theirs to be protected better than any other type of property, screwing with our rights and liberties in the process.
more detail on the legal issues:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/06/if-youve-ever-sold-a-used-ipod-you-may-have-violated-copyright-law/258276/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnvillasenor/2012/10/21/can-copyrighted-works-purchased-abroad-be-resold-in-the-united-states/
a citizengroup formed to fight the continued expansion of copyright: http://ownershiprights.org/
oh yes, it is. and to me it seems to not have attracted enough attention in the mainstream media so far -- which is how the MPAA, RIAA and their ilk like it.
the US supreme court is set to hear argument in "kirtsaeng v john wiley & sons" starting on october 29th. thai student supang kirtsaeng, while studying in the US, discovered that the expensive textbooks required for his courses could be bought much cheaper in thailand. so he had his relatives buy and ship them to him. being an enterprising young man, he then built a business on this discrepancy by selling textbooks on ebay, where publisher wiley & sons took notice and sued him for copyright infringement. which they won in the lower courts.
and that opens a nasty can of worms, which could lead to your next ebay -- or garage -- sale being illegal, depending on whether the items you sell were made abroad. there is a thing called the "doctrine of first sale" in the US limiting copyright and trademark rights, which means you can resell any copyrighted item if you have bought it legally, without permission or any further payment to the copyright owner. the US supreme court affirmed this right in 1998, regarding goods manufactured in the US, even if they were originally sold abroad.
but when it comes to products sold in foreign markets, there's also a statute concerning imports (and when reading this, you can immediately tell which industry had extraordinary influence in its creation). which is how supang kirtsaeng ended up getting sued. ok, you could say that kirtsaeng was acting more like an importer than an individual, but the law doesn't actually make a distinction between selling one ipad (assembled in china) and thousands. huge secondary markets rely on the doctrine of first sale -- i have no idea what percentage of the economy, but it's got to be significant. ebay, craigslist, amazon market, goodwill, the salvation army -- oh, and libraries could be affected.
so yeah, y'all need to pay attention to this one. i find it ridiculous that certain intellectual property owners want theirs to be protected better than any other type of property, screwing with our rights and liberties in the process.
more detail on the legal issues:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/06/if-youve-ever-sold-a-used-ipod-you-may-have-violated-copyright-law/258276/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnvillasenor/2012/10/21/can-copyrighted-works-purchased-abroad-be-resold-in-the-united-states/
a citizengroup formed to fight the continued expansion of copyright: http://ownershiprights.org/
no subject
on 2012-10-24 01:00 (UTC)Lenin knew this. He should be spinning in that glass coffin of his by now.
no subject
on 2012-10-24 22:21 (UTC)when i was younger i thought maybe capitalism will curb its own excesses because peons are, after all necessary, both for production and consumption. in order for the few to get filthy rich, it behooves capitalism to keep them reasonably satisfied -- give them sufficient bread and circus. but even filthy rich and powerful people are in general just too short-sighted -- or maybe just too utterly selfish. it's still working in the US, but the empire is definitely in decline now.
it just boggles the mind how much the right seems almost brainwashed to the point of voting against their own well-being because they're convinced it's in their own interest. this whole idiotic idea that obama is a socialist and that socialism will end freedom as we know it is just so far from reality. obama is as capitalist as the politicians to the right of him, he just recognizes that healthy, happy peons do better work and stay complacent and malleable much longer. societies with more equality among the citizens work more smoothly. republicans, i guess, don't recognize that "occupy" is just the beginning of what happens when the demarcation between the haves and the have-nots becomes too large.