
How an EBay Bookseller Defeated a Publishing Giant at the Supreme Court - gergles
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/how-an-ebay-bookseller-defeated-a-publishing-giant-at-the-supreme-court
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georgeecollins
I enjoyed this article, but it bothered me that he disclosed that he wrote an
amicus brief at the very end of four pages. I love Ars Technica. Please
improve your journalism standards by making authors disclose their bias at the
front of an article.

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verisimilidude
Not just at the front, but maybe on every separate page too.

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rtpg
This is a wonderful write-up of the case.Slightly OT but I do think it's worth
listening to oral arguments for the Supreme Court.

This case's:

[http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2012/2012_11_697](http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2012/2012_11_697)

A case's oral arguments are an hour long, and are good for getting an idea of
what are the legal implications of a specific case. I try to listen at least
to those when trying to decide how I feel about a ruling.

Legal implications in the future play a big part in how cases end up being
ruled, even if it seems like the "bad guys" win for a specific situation.

The unanimous ruling against buffer zones is one example of this :
[http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2013/2013_12_1168](http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2013/2013_12_1168)

Kyllo V. US (Does using a thermal imaging device on your house consist of a
search?) also has a lot of conversation that, when taken out of context, make
Justices seem unaware of technical advances. But in context, you can see that
these lines of questioning are more about pushing the reasoning to its limits
:
[http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2000/2000_99_8508](http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2000/2000_99_8508)

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msravi
So let's see. A company wants to sell its goods to people in the US at a
higher price than elsewhere. So they want the people in the US to interpret a
law in a way that would put people in the US at a disadvantage compared to the
rest of the world. Can anything get more ridiculous than this?

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awjr
It was even more fundamental than that. A foreign manufactured product could
have the 'right to re-sale' by the owner effectively revoked. If the ruling
had gone the other way, a lot of manufacturing would have moved out of the USA
as the manufacturers would have had a lot more control over resale.

In summary, as long as it was manufactured legally anywhere in the world then
you can damn well do with it what you like after you have bought it :)

What is more interesting is his comment on the “You Own Devices Act” (YODA).
In the Internet of Things age, you may own the physical device but the licence
to the software running on the device could be argued, is not transferrable.
YODA enforces first sale rights to such devices making the software 'licence'
transferable as part of the sale.

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throwawaykf05
_> If the ruling had gone the other way, a lot of manufacturing would have
moved out of the USA as the manufacturers would have had a lot more control
over resale._

This is a gross overstatement. Most manufacturing does not involve copyright
and so this ruling would have no bearing on that at all. The simplest way I
can put this from my non-lawyer understanding is, "copyright law does not
trump first sale doctrine".

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LordKano
I'm sorry but this ruling is one of the things that establishes that.

Had this ruling gone the other way, copyright would trump first sale doctrine.

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throwawaykf05
Yes, I meant to say "The simplest way I can put this _ruling_ from my non-
lawyer understanding is..."

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mark-r
My prediction: a bill to restore discriminatory pricing will be passed before
the next congress is out. They'll probably insert it into YODA so they can act
like they're doing us a favor while they screw us.

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paulhauggis
"a textbook priced at $50 overseas might cost $100 in the US."

It might be $50, but it also contains less content/problem sets. Some of the
cheap books published in countries like India have as little as 15-20% of the
content than the same US edition contains.

This will only hurt those countries. Publishers will just stop producing
International editions and you will have the same, high priced edition, world-
wide..which will price many of those people out of the market completely.

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nkurz
You present a false dichotomy. I'm dubious that at any point going forward
students, learners, and academics in third world countries will have less
access to up-to-date information than they do now as a result of this ruling.

Even if we assume that publishers stop producing separate International
editions, there is no reason to assume they will price them identically in all
regions. More likely, they will price them in a way that they think will
maximize their profits. If this price is judged by the international audience
to be too high, the market will respond with increased piracy. Eventually,
some other publishers will enter the market with a reincarnation of the
"International edition" lured by the siren song of potential profit.

In the alternative
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_pleading](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_pleading)),
if the International editions truly contain less content than the standard
edition (15-20% of the content), and hence less value, perhaps the
international price is simply fair value here in the US as well? And if so,
why should sale at this price (plus profit for the importer) be prohibited? I
find it more likely that the captive nature of the US audience (required
textbook of a specified edition) allows the US edition to be priced at a
premium beyond that which the information content itself would justify.

