http://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-right-to-resell-your-own-stuff-is-in-peril-2012-10-04
Are they hoping that people will cash in their gold and silver so that
the price will go down?
*Natalia**
*
By Jennifer Waters <mailto:[email protected]>, MarketWatch
An earlier version of this column contained an incorrect spelling of
Georgetown Law School's Jonathan Band.
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.
A Supreme Court case could limit the resale of goods made overseas but
sold in America.
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. AAPL +0.26%
<http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/AAPL?link=MW_story_quote>
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. EBAY +0.76%
<http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/EBAY?link=MW_story_quote>
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.
Click to Play
<http://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-right-to-resell-your-own-stuff-is-in-peril-2012-10-04#>
Better made in the U.S.A.
While American men's brands once prized European craftsmanship or
appreciated low-cost production from the Far East, some of the best
fashion now is made right here in the U.S. Martin Marks talks menswear.
(Photo: AP)
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.
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