I am all for protecting copyrighted works but when they want you to get their permission for selling second hand copies they are just pushing more people into pirating stuff.
eBay frets as right to resell comes under scrutiny
eBay has launched a “grass roots” campaign to defend America’s first sale doctrine, as a Supreme Court hearing approaches that could subject second-hand and resale trades to the approval of rights-holders. The online auctioneer is lobbying in defense of the first sale doctrine, and has launched “eBay Main Street” to mobilize …
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Monday 8th October 2012 06:50 GMT LarsG
It is an anomalous judgement, unless of course the Judge has something up his sleeve?
Maybe he thinks resellers should pay a taxation fee to sell second hand goods.
Not only will this have an effect on EBay, but Amazon will be stuffed too.
It would be impossible to differentiate between someone selling on a second hand item and someone reselling the item from a profit point of view.
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Monday 8th October 2012 12:45 GMT GotThumbs
Re: By inference
"Land of the Free" is becoming more a more a pathetic joke within this nation's borders.
While I live in America, I've had the opportunity to travel quite a bit. I always chuckle to myself when I hear Americans brag and pump their chests that America is the freest nation, yet in truth, it is really one of the most restrictive. Rather than respect others choices....many wish to control the way other americans live and believe. They even try to dictate to those outside it borders...and yet it has millions who are poor and hungry within its borders. America has become a country without character and resolve. It relies more it its payouts to countries to buy friends/alliances. It's overwhelming transparent and cheapens the character of this once great nation. The UN is overrun by corruption and special interests...yet the US chooses to continue to play along as if there is nothing going on. Turning a blind eye to these kinds of issues will bring this country down even further in standing and respect. Sure other leaders smile and shake the hands of US Leaders, but don't fool yourselves into thinking it changes once they exit the room.
My key point is American needs to focus on cleaning its own house before thinking it knows what's best for other nations. Give them some credit, as America is one of the youngest nations and is heading towards another period of civil unrest due to "Redistribution" beliefs of its current leader.
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Monday 8th October 2012 05:58 GMT Voland's right hand
Devil's advocate mode
This precedent goes both ways. If it is not overthrown it will be only a matter of time until it is enforced in the other direction - for export.
All of those foreign students which study in the USA will be automatically criminals if they decide to take their old textbooks back home overseas and sell/lend/give them as a present to someone. The same applies to a lot of the peace corps and other charity programmes who trawl college and school bookshops and libraries for out-of-use textbooks for use in their 3rd world education drives.
If you look at the bigger picture this is beyond counterproductive. Textbooks are recurring purchases with regular reprints and regular printing of new editions. For each copy which is "illegaly" resold you get tens if not hundreds of copies which are bought via the regular channels.
It is in the publisher interest to get the biggest possible audience for a textbook to ensure that the the reprints and future editions are ordered by as many schools and students as possible. Artificially limiting textbooks by territory means losing mindshare and giving it away to other publishers.
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Monday 8th October 2012 09:26 GMT Dazed and Confused
The small print is meaningless
I've no idea about the law on this in the US, but over in the UK many books have small print saying you can't resell them, but you can still find them in second hand book stores. The law is quite clear. The publisher has the right of first sale after that its yours to do with as you wish, read, burn or sell on. The only thing you can't do is to copy it, that is what copyright is all about. Copyright doesn't give thieving bastards the right to control what you choose to do after you've handed over the money.
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Monday 8th October 2012 11:21 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: The small print is meaningless
"but over in the UK many books have small print saying you can't resell them"
Yes, they do. But the clause continues with "...in any other cover than the original." or words to that effect.
In other words, you can't re-bind the book into a different cover, eg possibly passing it off as your own work, and then sell it. You can re-sell it in the original binding/cover.
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Monday 8th October 2012 17:23 GMT Chris Fox
Re: The small print is meaningless
The condition to not sell or lend a rebound book is normally seen in paperback edition. The condition on resale might stem from a desire to stop people buying (cheap) paperbacks, having them bound in hard covers and passing them off as (expensive) hardbacks. Such "passing-off" is probably covered by legislation on counterfit goods.
The condition on lending is perhaps intended to encourage libraries to buy the more expensive and more durable hardback version (which is often one of the larger markerts when it comes to more expensive hardback books). Under UK copyright law, lending, and renting is not permitted without the consent of the rights holds. But libraries are exempt from these restrictions...
Some, generally older, UK editions include a condition that they are not for (re)sale in the US. This might actually be because the US did not de facto recognise non-US copyright under the terms of the Berne Convention until surprisingly recently (1988). Some US citizens have tried (and failed) to argue that US law cannot uphold copyright terms for non-US works produced prior to1988: US citizens now have to pay to put on English plays that they might previously have performed without seeking the rights. (There is still an odditity in that if, and only if, you are a US citizen, you have no right to defend your non-US copyrights in the US unless you formally register them in the US. Nobody else has to register their copyright -- its as if the US legal system recognises the Berne convention for everybody except US citizens...)
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Monday 8th October 2012 21:06 GMT Pet Peeve
Re: The small print is meaningless
Yep, this is called "stripping" a book. When a bookseller wants a refund for an unsold book, they rip off and return the cover, and are SUPPOSED to destroy the rest of the book. Reselling a stripped book is a big no-no, for obvious reasons.
The current case seems to mostly be about the gray market (or grey market, if you prefer). Sellers want to control the right to set prices differently in each market, and trying to fix that puts everything in direct conflict with the first sale doctrine, so they need to CUT THAT OUT right this instant.
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Sunday 7th October 2012 23:33 GMT billyboy47
Let us see the manufacturers of ALL productes be honest and not hide anything in the small print, let them obviously place the following "Not for resale by anyone under any circumstances" in a highly visible place on all of their products and see their sales drop through the floor.
If I buy something, I am at liberty to sell it once it no longer has a use for me, it is possibly the mother of all recycling and also helps people in a low financial position.
I guess, once more, this has more to do with "Apple" than meets the eye, they are running scared now that android systems are taking over the world.
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Monday 8th October 2012 08:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Oh yes, blame everything on Apple, what are you on about?
Since when has Apple stopped people selling things on ebay?
They may have said they won't transfer iTunes libraries between people, but don't forget they have to play by the rules of the media giants who supply them with the content. It was these media giants who also insisted on DRM for music despite Jobs not wanting it. Jobs also refused to support blu-ray on OSX for similar reasons.
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Monday 8th October 2012 06:45 GMT Steven Roper
Don't worry
America is now officially at the "Nero fiddling as Rome burns" stage, and their empire is falling to the "Goths" (aka China and India). Won't be long now, once America's Rome has been sacked the rest of the world will be free of their greedy shit once again.
I'm looking forward to seeing the USA become the next Somalia. Their comeuppance has been far too long in the offing.
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Monday 8th October 2012 12:10 GMT nematoad
Re: Don't worry
"Their comeuppance has been far too long in the offing."
Be careful what you wish for, it might come true and then you might be bowing down to new set of overlords.
The US is not my cup of tea and I do take their arrogance and assumption that everything revolves around them badly, for example, trying to enforce their court decisions on sovereign countries, see Microsoft and Motorola in the spat over the German injunction, blocked by an American court!
But a place like China might just be a bit worse. Look at how they treat Tibet for example.
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Monday 8th October 2012 17:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Don't worry
If you think everything would be fine without the USA, i would suggest you're forgetful. Every country's government is out of control to varying degrees. until the citizens of each country re-codify individual rights and freedoms and arrest and punish their treasonous leaders, you will always have one country or another on top abusing it's people's mandate and interfering with/disrupting/bombing/starving/infesting with mutant dna/whatever dr.evilian scheme you wish to site, the rest of the world. It's kind of funny that any westerner would condemn the US tactics as they are directly inherited from our common predecessors' tactics. In many ways the US never stopped being a british colony. What do you think the US prison system is? or the critical infrastructure built in occupied/liberated nations? Conquest, war, trade and slavery. New brand name and ad campaign, same product, same parent company. Until we stop buying the product a new seller will always emerge to prey on it's fellow man.
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Monday 8th October 2012 02:24 GMT Pete Spicer
I actually think that Apple is not really the one lobbying for this, it isn't really in their interests to prevent people moving up the ecosystem. That said, the whole thing with Bruce Willis is relevant but I always got the impression that was more about them covering themselves rather than anything else.
I personally suspect it's more likely to be the RIAA, MPAA and the folks who make high value games - these are the groups who think they lose out most from such things, as demonstrated by the increasingly inane tactics and claims regarding second hand sales of games.
What these people fail to understand is that thinking short-term about profit maximisation is guaranteed to come back and bite you in the ass in the long term.
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Monday 8th October 2012 04:47 GMT Tom 35
more likely to be the RIAA, MPAA and the folks who make high value games
Don't forget textbook publishers.
They change the edition every couple years to make it hard for students to resell their books. 99% of the changes between v4 and v5 is moving the chapters around so the pages don't line up when the prof says turn to page 89.
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Monday 8th October 2012 05:58 GMT Synja
There is a difference...
There is a difference... between software and abstracts, embedded or otherwise, and hardware/material goods.
With software and other abstracts you purchase a license to use the product, not the product itself. It is completely reasonable for a publisher to have the ability to limit rights in the case of a license... A phone company shouldn't have to allow service transfers, a software company shouldn't have to allow the license to be sold to a second party, etc. Regardless of whether we agree with those terms, a business should be allowed to license their products in whatever manner they choose, the free market is the only body capable of properly regulating this through supply and demand. The same concept applies to material goods in terms of market self regulation.
The market will respond to any attempts to allow outrageous licensing by creating a demand for GPL/BSD/etc style licenses and sales agreements, a supplier will step in, and the demand will be filled. I don't see this being much of a problem since the rights holders are publishers, record labels, and manufacturers rather than individual designers and performers usually.
@Michael Dunn: I would argue that the games *are* high value if for no other reason than people are willing to pay those high prices. It's like gold or diamonds.... they are only valuable because people are willing to pay high prices, supply and demand. Unlike silver, Uranium, or other more industrial rare metals, they have no inherent value other than being considered rare/pretty/valuable. (I'm not going to consider gold as a valuable industrial material due to the extremely small amounts required for its industrial applications; powders and plating in most cases.)
My only real concern within all of this is that every time the US supreme court allows for greater regulation of *anything* it creates more problems than it solves. Just look at the unintended/side effects of every major regulation in the US for the past 100 years. Our war on poverty has increased poverty, economic regulations and taxes have punished the lower and middle classes, drug regulations have made drugs far cheaper and more potent (adjusting for inflation), overzealous environmental regulations have targeted non-existant problems causing grief for the lower and middle classes, healthcare regulations have stifled innovation and research while increasing the cost of care, etc.
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Monday 8th October 2012 07:31 GMT Ben Tasker
Re: There is a difference...
An argument straight out of Economics 101. The problem is, the 'free' market only works when people (including the players within) let it.
Take this case for example, the publishers are within that market, but rather than letting the market decide what's right and wrong, they're taking legal action to try and enforce a stance that very few would agree is sensible or logical.
With software and other abstracts you purchase a license to use the product, not the product itself. It is completely reasonable for a publisher to have the ability to limit rights in the case of a license...
The problem with software licenses, is in many case it feels like you're buying the item in much the same way as you would a book. What's the difference between walking into WH Smith, paying for and walking out with a book when compared to walking into PC World, paying for MS Office and walking out box in hand?
The only material difference is the terms we apply. In neither case do you expect to sell it as your own creation (at least, not legally) but I think it's quite reasonable to expect to be able to sell either on once you no longer have a need for it.
Whether someone might sell it having made a copy isn't entirely relevant, as they could do the same with the book, it's just a lot more work.
My view is if you've bought a physical item, you are within your rights to sell it on, whether it be a book or an install CD.
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Monday 8th October 2012 09:32 GMT Dazed and Confused
Re: There is a difference...
Why should sw be any different to anything else you hand over your money for in a shop.
SW companies have managed to get away with this fallacy for far too long, SW should not be any different to buying a book, a CD/DVD or any other such stuff. You should hand over your money in return for owning your copy.
Perhaps I should be allowed to say that the money they receive from me may not be sold, trade or exchanged with anyone else.
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Tuesday 9th October 2012 10:09 GMT shaunhw
Re: There is a difference...
If you can't resell something, then it has zero value as an asset, so would people really pay a lot of money for something which was immediately rendered worthless after purchase ?
Wouldn't they be mad really to purchase an item with such restrictions ?
Imagine buying a car, which you couldn't resell because of the licensing conditions of the sofware in the on-board computer! Or that top of the range flat screen television you bought on impulse.
It sounds like some of these companies just want to have their cake and to eat it as well.
Pure greed,
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Monday 8th October 2012 08:47 GMT Fihart
Were the books secondhand ?
If the student was actually selling new imported books as a business then he'd be within the grey market argument that has been used in Europe to bar sales of parallel imports such as Levis at Tesco and famous brand perfumes at Superdrug. The EU upheld the mfrs right to restrict sales to authorised outlets.
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Monday 8th October 2012 09:00 GMT batfastad
Throw away
So all those things you buy, use, then give to a charity shop or recycle? New government policy, chuck it in landfill! As if we aren't screwing up this planet enough already.
I wondered when some mentalist would come up with something like this though. The media cartels constantly whinge about online piracy but what about all other forms of piracy, i.e.: those endorsed and actively encouraged by eBay, Amazon Marketplace. Will those websites be taken down for providing links that profit from the sale of pirated material and make it easy to obtain?
Here we go, rant alert... May only be partially related to the text in the article.
If it includes one form of intellectual property, art and antiques should also. Or will this only apply to items that are price fixed by the media cartels?
At least this should mean the cartels being forced to massively reduce prices to compensate for the fact that you are getting fewer rights when purchasing. Yeah right.
Actually why stop there, lets also prevent the resale of houses and property. If you want to sell your house your solicitor will have to draft a document which waives your intellectual property rights to the interior and exterior design/layout, or that rotten old shed you built in the garden 15 years ago.
And actually money. The design of money is owned and controlled by a rights holder (government/central bank). Lets put a stop to this re-use of money straight away. Lets add a tax every time you use money or whenever you give it to someone else. What's that? Oh.
Personally, I am a massive big pirate. I can't remember the last time I bought a brand new book/DVD/CD/vinyl record from an actual shop. Second hand all the way! Mainly because it's all a load of cr*p. The media I tend to spend money on (records) generally aren't available new anyway. If I could buy a brand new mint pressing of Allan Harris & Perpetual Motion - Get Ready on 12" then I would be all over it. Finally, my second hand purchase has a higher chance of giving a regular person their money back and helping them out a bit, rather than some millionaire t*sser.
Media cartels need to realise that their industry is no different to any other industry that has boomed then faltered with the advent of new technology. They would be better off reducing prices and making it trivial to obtain legal DRM-free digital copies.
Phew, sorry for that! Coffee hasn't happened yet.
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Monday 8th October 2012 11:46 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Liability
...and for that matter, when did you last buy some software (including firmware etc) that wasn't buggy or needing patching from new?
The software industry in particular has always been broken in terms of selling shoddy goods not fit for purpose and then attempting to fix them after the sale. Worse, people accept this state of affairs.
Can you imagine your house builder turning up every first Tuesday of the month to replace your door locks because the current ones default to open, or replace the guttering because it leaks, or install new windows because the current ones open the wrong way and these were all faults built in at time of construction?
Or your car being recalled to the garage for repair/service/updates *every* month?
And now some tit is trying to make it after you've bought a pile of shite having been taken in by shiny advertising and false promises, you can't even sell it on to get some of your money back!
At least in the Eurozone, as Oracle have found out, it *is* legal to sell on a software licence :-)
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Monday 8th October 2012 11:40 GMT ForthIsNotDead
Hmmm...
"Hello? Is that Ford?"
"Yes, it is. How can we help you today?"
"I'd like to sell Ford Focus, I'm thinking about buying a new one. Is it okay with you if I sell it?"
"Oh. Sorry, but we don't allow private individuals to sell our cars second hand. For health and safety reasons. You see, it might have a fault, then we might get sued."
"Oh. I see. Okay, never mind. I'll just keep it on the road then. Bye"
"Bye"
< six months later >
Ford: Bloody hell. Why is no-one buying our cars anymore?
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The moral of this story: The second hand market makes space for the 'new' market. Fuck with it at your peril.
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Monday 8th October 2012 12:33 GMT depeyre
Depeyre
This breaks all the rules of the Free Market - Secondhand good are just that "Use, Pre Owned" any interference is next to communism trying to control every aspect of a market is ridiculous and is like price fixing it creates nepotism laziness and bad companies thats why we have recessions and bad products from some markets - The USA was based on free trade and should always be about that and not worries that some ones secondhand pre read books may not be sold out side a countries markets - How does that work travel is free to most citizens you take a book to another country you may leave it or it may get sold outside that market and an unfixed price its a basic tenet of capitalism and free trade
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Monday 8th October 2012 12:41 GMT Colin Millar
Uncle Vlad? Is that you?
From now on the whole US economy will be based on pump and dump. This has the benefit of concentrating the cash in the hands of the elite at an ever increasing rate. The marginalisation (impending criminalisation?) of buy low sell high is something that the monopolistic globals have been pursuing with ever increasing vigour - they simply want to drive competition out of the market at any level.
Lenin must be rolling in his tomb laughing his bollox off that the USA finally implemented his NEP.
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Monday 8th October 2012 14:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Goodbye Amazon?
Amazon buys products from manufacturers (rights holders ?) then sells that property on to Joe Gullybull. Hmmm, so that will suddenly become illegal? Let me guess - there will be one liberal law for corporations and a draconian law for us plebians. That should get around that little problem.
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Monday 8th October 2012 15:15 GMT Alan Esworthy
I hope the decision's upheld, heh, heh, heh.
Govts all over the world, and the U.S. govt especially, are increasingly seen as organized crime writ large. If the U.S. Supreme Court agrees with the 2nd Circuit and says Americans are not free to sell used copyrighted goods, this will simply increase the level of contempt (well deserved) in which that institution is held, and increase the flouting of the law. I'd welcome that.
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Tuesday 9th October 2012 04:00 GMT MachDiamond
Not workable
The corporate mob might be slow coming to the table over this issue as the first semester of b-school involves a lobotomy (at least that how it seems to me). Let's take an overblown example since they are the best sort. I have just become old enough to have a driver's license. Since younger drivers tend to drive a bit more aggressively, they will have a smash in the first couple of years of driving or at least a full set of dings. Obviously, it would be a good move to purchase a second hand car which may be all the budget will support anyway. Whoops, no second hand sales. Since I can't afford a new car on my own and the parents aren't going to cough up, I guess I am not going to get a car. Off to the tube/bus/train station to get where I need to go. A few years of getting around without a car and I might get used to it to the point where I would rather hang on to my "disposable" income instead of handing it over to the insurance company and the petrol station/mechanic/part store. The automobile companies have just lost a load of sales over the course of my lifetime. Multiply me by the number of young people of age to get a license but did not choose parents with loads of unassigned cash. Now the companies that thought they were going to make a bunch more money are going to find out that people are not going to get used to having their product. As a photographer I have seen lots of people selling stuff they tried out and didn't get the hang of. If they couldn't sell their used kit, they wouldn't have tried it.
I buy most of my books second hand. I believe that Cory Doctorow is the only author I have bought a "new" audiobook from since it was a fairly direct purchase and properly priced. I prefer audiobooks since I can do housework, car maintenance and yard work while listening to a story. I buy used DVD's through eBay and Amazon. I don't take any pleasure from trying to get the plastic wrap off of a new one. I bought my last car from my mother at a price bordering on theft. Computers - used. I do buy new food. I'm funny that way.
I believe in the time honored tradition of selling off my old stuff to buy new(er) stuff. If I want to try something, like learning the cello, I would rather test the waters with a used item and see how it goes. If I don't like it, I can probably get my purchase price back.
If I don't own it, I am renting it. When I'm done with it the manufacturer will have to send somebody out to fetch it back and dispose of it. It's not mine.