Monday, October 8, 2012

Supreme Court To Rule on Your Right To Resell Your Own Stuff

Graphic Via:  althetrainer 

How many of you enjoy visiting the weekly yard sales around your neighborhood, browsing the flea markets or selling your stuff on Ebay and Craig's List?  Well, get a load of this...

According to the article below, we may lose the right to resell our own property to someone else without permission from the "copyright holder of those products".  A case is going before the Supreme Court sometime this fall that could limit the resale of goods made overseas but sold in America.  How many things do you own that were made in China?

It sounds ridiculous, but we already know that anything is possible these days.  I want to believe that the Supreme Court would rule against such a thing, but after the ObamaCare ruling, I wouldn't put anything past them.
Via: WSJ Market Watch
by Jennifer Waters
Your right to resell your own stuff is in peril
It could become illegal to resell your iPhone 4, car or family antiques
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.
Read more...

16 comments:

  1. And once again I am forced to ask myself ... how do these geniuses propose to enforce their ban on human nature?

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    1. Good question.

      This isn't passed yet, so there is still hope. But if it is, I want to know how the heck they will be able to enforce such a law without making flea markets and garage sales illegal. Am I missing something here?

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  2. What?!? This is absurd! Government leviathan sure does have to ruin everything (or try to). Power, control and making your life a living hell needs to be the new motto for what these government bureaucrats do.

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    1. Just another example of how our rights are being taken away. Let's hope the SCOTUS does the right thing.

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    2. Our newly re-elected president could stop this type of ridiculous law..... but he does nothing. Like the recent law passed to eliminate big tobacco company's competition by outlawing roll-your-own cigarette stores. In the next four years we are going to lose SO many of our rights to the highest bidding large corporations. This country is falling so fast, in order to make the very rich richer! What are they going to do when the US dollar is worthless because of their greed ???

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  3. Bottom line,I see it as a negative for the economy, meaning much more to lose than to gain. It's Not going to happen. The consumer is 70%+ of the economy.

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    1. I hope you're right. Unfortunately, sometimes common sense doesn't win out.

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  4. While this would have a temporary legal issue for buyers, in the end it would absolutely destroy the foreign markets. No one, and I mean no one, would buy their stuff. They would come begging for us to change that should it become law. I can't believe someone would trifle with such matters, a business that should understand this better than anyone, no less. Shortsighted greed. I actually hope it survives as is. Both to teach some lessons... and give America one holy grail of a bargaining chip (which only Romney would use well, so praying he is elected if this stands).

    You would have every major foreign and domestic company (which uses foreign patents and/or manufacturing) begging for... a second chance. I can only imagine what would happen to the company leadership which brought down this house of cards though. Wouch... Fun to watch, but in these perilous times... fun is dangerous.

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    1. You've made some really great points. Who would purchase anything of substantial value from another country if they thought someday they might sell it, e.g. a car.

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    2. Your idea of the "bargaining chip" is interesting, though.

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  5. I believe they'll change their minds when we stop buying the new items.

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    1. Hopefully, the SCOTUS will think better of this and vote it down. I think Bill O'Reilly is going to have a report on this story tonight.

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  6. This is what happens when ya freakin outsource. 2 all those outsourcing supporters, foreigners might sell your crap locally usually for less (because their currency is less than the us). If it passes then I will not buy another cell phone and other tech crap....

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    1. I bet a lot of people will think twice about buying anthing made in another country.

      Thank you for stopping by and commenting.

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