eBay Defends The Right to Resell Property

[BartyMae]

This could be really bad if the Supreme Court upholds the lower court's decision...say good bye to a good portion of Amazon, Ebay, Discogs, etc., used cars dealerships, yard sales, probably other things...

Actually, in reality, what I expect to happen is that the rights holders will demand a percentage of the resale, or there will be no resale. That isn't as bad as completely outlawing used items, but it's still ridiculous.

(edit) It seems as though I may be misunderstanding, judging on what others have said. This will only apply to imported items? Still bad, but...

 

[Akisa]

So...basically...

Some jackasses want to BAN yard sales?

Thank you 1%...I mean 'job creators'.

Actually it started out as someone who wants to ban someone from buying products over seas where they are sold cheaply and than sell them in the United States undercutting the price of publishers in the United States while still maintaining a profit.

For a video game sales, think of some store buying American released games at 60 dollars and than undercutting the overpriced video games in Australia by reselling them at 80 AU dollars + import cost, when the local publishers are demanding 120 AU dollars.

I hope you're not trying to justify AU game prices.
;

Because, even as an American, I know that playing 120USD for a video game is COMPLETE BULLSHIT.

If there was ever a case for "price gouging", then it'd be in AU's gaming market.

No I was providing explanation and a comparison.

 

[crazyrabbits]

Perhaps I'm being obtuse here, but last time I checked when you buy something, that means it belongs to you. If I purchase a book or anything else, I'll use it, sell it, set it on fire, or repurpose it as a cereal bowl. It doesn't matter, I own it

Except that book had no business being in North America. The publisher owns the rights to the book and its distribution. The argument isn't about whether or not you can resell it, its whether or not you were allowed to import it in the first place.

This speaks to import and availability issues - it's no one's fault but the publisher when a product they haven't exported to another region (in this case, the U.S.) is bought from them, at the price they set, and sold elsewhere. There is no law saying someone can't import a product if it isn't available in their country - there are entire markets that have sprung up around that fact as well.

The first-sale doctrine can be boiled down to "the transaction has already been made between the publisher and the buyer - whatever you do with that (non-commercially) afterwards is your business". There's a grey area in what the student is doing - if he was reselling them immediately after the fact, they might have a bigger case against him.

Yet, I don't see this going very far in the courts. If the first-sale doctrine was in danger of being struck down, there's be a protest (online and in person) that would make SOPA look like a preamble. That law is arguably responsible for the entire second-hand market, with major companies using it as their business model (Gamestop, Goodwill, etc). I'm sure the gaming industry will be looking on with great interest, seeing as they're trying to destroy the second-hand market by going all-digital.