Thread: Your right to resell your own stuff is in peril

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — 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. 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.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.

He then sold them on eBay, making upward of $1.2 million, according to court
documents.

Wiley, which admitted that it charged less for books sold abroad than it did
in the United States, sued him for copyright infringement. Kirtsaeng countered
with the first-sale doctrine.


Your right to resell your own stuff is in peril - Jennifer Waters's Consumer Confidential - MarketWatch

I know this is going on and they are trying to pass this copywriter law..but I can't see them enforcing this, it would take an army just for that....of course I have been wrong many times before..These people are nuts!!!! My feeling is when I buy something it is mine not theirs, I didn't rent it I didn't lease it, I bought it it is a thing I bought plain and simple any judge who passes this needs to be condemed, sanctioned, quarantined, and his name needs to be plastered everywhere any which way possible with his name used as a new swear word....Now the politician or politicians who but this up for a vote or allowed his/her name or names to be put on this, well, that may be another matter all together, but then we don't tar and feather any more do we....I think they can go take a hike...