So you thought you could sell the things you own? Yeah, about that... [View all]

[ElboRuum]

According to an appellate court ruling, maybe not freely as an "owned" item, at least if the goods were produced outside of the U.S. I present for your consideration the following article:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-right-to-resell-your-own-stuff-is-in-peril-2012-10-04?pagenumber=1

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.

However, what is being challenged is whether or not foreign made products fall under the auspices of this law. If the appellate court ruling that they are not is upheld, this could have far reaching (and in my humble opinion, tragically silly) effects on what "ownership" actually constitutes.

Now the Supreme Court is going to hear oral arguments on this. The following statements from the article say it best:

Both Ammori and Band worry that a decision in favor of the lower court would lead to some strange, even absurd consequences. For example, it could become an incentive for manufacturers to have everything produced overseas because they would be able to control every resale.

(snip)

In its friend-of-the-court brief, eBay noted that the Second Circuit’s rule “affords copyright owners the ability to control the downstream sales of goods for which they have already been paid.” What’s more, it “allows for significant adverse consequences for trade, e-commerce, secondary markets, small businesses, consumers and jobs in the United States.”

The idea of "ownership" as it is viewed in the U.S. has seen encroachment from parties looking to extend the revenue stream beyond the initial point of sale. Software licensing rather than software ownership, for one example, turns the idea of ownership on its head. It is a statement that just because you pay for a product is not an indication of ownership of that product. Software licensing has advanced the idea of "loanership", where you purchase the "right to use a thing" but only within certain agreed upon parameters where "loanership" can be revoked, and your ability to sell the thing to another can be curtailed or removed.

This decision extends that encroachment to the idea of anything made outside of the U.S. as a legal loophole of the first-sale doctrine which is the linchpin of modern ideas of ownership. 'Once you sell me a thing and I take ownership of that thing it is not yours anymore, therefore you are not owed a dime from my selling it to someone else.'

IMHO this is getting downright silly. If the SCOTUS upholds this decision, the silly will probably cease to be conceptual and become much more material.