Supreme Court issues major copyright ruling on foreign sales

la times ^ | 3/19/2013 | David Savage

[tobyhill]

The Supreme Court, in a major ruling on copyright law, has given foreign buyers of textbooks, movies and other products a right to resell them in the United States without the permission of the copyright owner. The 6-3 decision is a victory for a former USC student from Thailand, Supap Kirtsaeng, who figured he could earn money by buying textbooks at lower costs in his native country and selling them in the United States.

[Will88]

This might be a blow to the charging what the market will bear strategy. Sell high in the US and other higher income nations and sell low in lower income nations. That’s how companies maximize profits by seeking the greatest volume of sales.

Since this involves RE-sale only, it’s probably a reasonable ruling as long as some don’t start importing lower priced copyrighted items on a massive scale. Then the companies would have to solve the problem by raising pricing in the lower income nation.

[Boogieman]

“If it is USIP and proven to be USIP, then the IP owner or his agents decide if it can be sold or if royalties are required”

Yeah, they already decided it could be sold when they sold him the textbooks in the first place. They can’t put additional restrictions saying that it can’t be resold after that. That was settled long ago when the music companies tried to stop people from reselling used CDs.

[relictele]

The sad part is we all paid some dork in DC $100,000+ per annum to come up with this lame trademark.

They’re doing a bang-up job with .eu and .bz domains, eh?

[SgtHooper]

Not under copyright law.

[dfwgator]

Half Price Books would go out of business if the opponents of this ruling had their way.

[tobyhill]

The way I read it is that the first owner can do whatever he wants with it, even give it away if that’s his desire.

[green iguana]

I never expected this ruling - and am so glad to see it. This means that you own what you buy, and are free to resell it. Copyright holders are free to charge whatever they want, wherever they want, but only for the first sale of an item, and can’t prevent resale.

Amazing! Standing up for property rights of the individual purchaser/owner over the greed of the company that already made what they wanted to charge.

[tobyhill]

The keywords the SCOTUS said was “lawfully made”. Now any person can legally make a copy of anything for their own use. Now the SCOTUS just opened the door for resale for profit of that copy.

[Will88]

That’s true. But the guy in this case was buying books in Thailand and reselling in the US for a profit. If he’s buying only a few no one will notice. What if thousands of foreign students start buying dozens or hundreds of textbooks each in their native country and resell them in the US?

Then the campus book stores notice the sales decreases. It’s another one of those things where if a very few do it no one notices. If it becomes large scale many will notice, including the book printer/copyright owner who sets the prices in all the countries involved.

[Paine in the Neck]

This should have implications for the phone-unlocking issue.

[Will88]

Several things the articles doesn’t address, and maybe the court case didn’t address.

How many books can a foreign student bring into the US and resell without some sort of import license?

And how many can he sell at a given college without acquiring a business license?

Not enough information to know whether the guy was bringing in a few books, or enough to be considered an importer and then a retailer in the US.

But that’s not the ‘distribution channel’ the copyright owner planned on, and if it became too significant they’d have to make changes or lose significant profit.

[lastchance]

Why “holy crap”? This is just an extension of “first use” policy which has been part of common law and statutory law for many years when it came to the reselling of copyrighted materials produced, bought and sold in the U.S.

The consequences if this case had been found in favor of the plaintiff would have been very far reaching and costly to consumers. Do some research on the case.

[tobyhill]

“According to these three justices, the majority decision's “bold departure from Congress’ design” is “stunning,” and they further say that the parade of horribles is “largely imaginary.” They object to the majority's interpretation of the phrase “lawfully made under this title” and say that the high court has just reduced the illegal importation clause of the Copyright Act to “insignificance.”

I think what the dissenting judges are saying is that there is no way of determining “lawfully made”.

[kidd]

This is a positive ruling.

Think about it...

First, it supports property rights.

Second, this removes the incentive for businesses to make most of their profits off of American customers. Businesses are now going to charge the entire world the same price rather than sticking it to Americans.

Expect prices of such items to drop somewhat.

[jyro]

Another win for personal freedom, the real story is that 3 voted against it. would you like to have to pay a copyright fee to sell a used car or have to pay copyright fees on your garage sale items your selling.

The concept of personal property should always be upheld in the USA.

[lastchance]

You are somewhat lacking in legal knowledge. This ruling does not allow the copying of any copyrighted material, current copyright law still applies. You can not copy a DVD you do not own even if it is for your own use.

What this ruling means is if a US citizen buys a work that has been published overseas the same “first use” policy pertains to that foreign published work as it does to a domestic published work. The publisher does not have a right to prohibit the resale of that work.

[tobyhill]

It is a positive ruling for the real owners of such items to do what they want but the other side of it is that it renders prosecution of copyright violators nonexistent. Everyone will claim they own the copy and there is no way law enforcement can find out otherwise.

Joe Blow gave me his copy that he made after he legally downloaded it off the internet.

[lastchance]

Your writing about patent law not copyright law.

[kidd]

What if thousands of foreign students start buying dozens or hundreds of textbooks each in their native country and resell them in the US? Then the campus book stores notice the sales decreases.

If the free market is allowed to operate freely, then the campus book store will start getting its books from the foreign sources directly.

Then the bookseller will lower domestic prices and raise foreign prices to maximumize their own profits, in accordance with supply vs. demand economics.

Once domestic prices from the bookseller have dropped sufficiently, the campus book store will once again get its books from a domestic source, with the effect that Americans will pay less and foreigners will pay more.

[lastchance]

I don’t see why it is our SCOTUS place to figure out why foreign countries can not get a better handle on the problem of goods that are unlawfully made on their own soil.

The fact that the DVD someone bought in Hong Kong might be a pirated copy is a red herring. There was never any question that the textbooks were indeed lawfully made.

If concerns about pirated goods are to take precedence over first use rights then the resale of any copyrighted or trademarked work whether produced domestically or not should be prohibited.