More info on the Copyright case before Supreme Court

Fascinating! I wonder if some of our "High Volume" sellers would be affected since some of their pricing seems too good to be true!

If you decide to become an "importer", you should be aware of the laws that cover imported goods.  Gray market re-selling has been around for a long time.  Cameras, lenses, higher end electronics were always available for sale BUT the owner was stuck with a product with no warranty unless they shipped it back to the place it came from.  Caveat Emptor.

From my cold dead hands.

As a former student, back in the dim, distant, geologic past, who THEN thought textbook pricing was a ripoff, with professors demanding you buy books they wrote,

which were never used in class, I side with this hapless student trying to beat the

system.  Also with 35mm cameras back when they were THE technology, you'd hear

about gray market cameras bought cheaper.  With eBay, Costco, and others with

big bucks and a financial interest, having his back, maybe the little guy will win

in the best American tradition.

Whole process sounds like just global economy to me, which I thought they were

trying to aid (only they're not).  Another case of reech Americanos paying through

the nose. (ever heard of a gray market for trains?? huh..huh?)

Doesn't seem like a problem for the sellers who acquired a foreign made product in the United States and then lists it on Ebay, like most of us do.  The importers are MTH and Lionel etc. and the first sale is in the U.S.  The court ought to be able to distinguish between the two cases.  Nobody should profit by ignoring import laws.

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Dennis

"SCOTUS" always looks like the clinical name for a body-part. Male, one would think.

And don't get me started on what "Mini i-Pad" sounds like.

One of the things I've learned following politics over the last 50 yrs is that those in power can change the rules whenever it profits them. That's why http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Wright_Mills called them The Power Elite....

_______________________________________________________________________

Economics is about how wealth is generated.

Politics (Power) is about how that wealth is distributed.

Every thing else out of a politicians mouth is noise.

It's purpose is to delude the GP into believing otherwise.

Or "POTUS"...    

Nicole I love reading your posts they are informative sometimes, funny sometimes and informative and funny a lot of the time. Keep em coming girl!!

Ron

Hey, I just know they will be able to enforce these laws. Just like taxs on line, or builders who work under the table. Yep, I can see them getting control of this like evrything else that's outlawed.

The article was about gray market merchandise. I have been involved in O-gauge for 25 plus years and never heard of a grey market O-gauge train. Anybody else hear of grey market O-gauge trains.

As far as I am concerned, the elephant in the room is the question: Why do we pay more for identical merchandise?

Because, as the article states, prices are tailored to the prevailing markets, be they domestic, in the case of U.S. sales, or overseas.  Nobody consumes like Americans consume, and nobody can afford to consume like Americans consume.

The question the article doesn't mention is where the "legal for U.S. sale" books were produced.  If the "legal for U.S. sale" books were produced here, I could see some price difference due to costs, but if both versions were produced overseas, then we have a case of real price gouging here.

Andy

quote:

As far as I am concerned, the elephant in the room is the question: Why do we pay more for identical merchandise?

It's not always identical.  In many cases the product is made with cheaper/inferior material.  That's partially why you don't get a warranty.  Part of the reason you pay the higher price for the legit version is to cover those warranty claims.

There are long standing reciprocal agreements covering copyright and import/export.  The kid broke those rules when he started importing books for other people (aka material not covered under "fair use").  The books should have been seized by customs once they hit the border since they didn't have US copyright notification imprinted on the books.

There have been concerns about resale of copyrighted material since there has been copyrighted material.  The usual rule is the holder of the copyright gets royalties on the first sale only.  That would have been fine if the books had stayed in their country of origin.  The holder of the copyright in the country of origin probably got paid.  The holder of the copyright in the US did not.  The whole point of the copyright is to make sure the holder of copyrighted material is compensated for their work.  Maybe that's part of why Wallmart has jumped into this.  If you can argue that you bought the material "new" overseas and are now importing it as "used" you can get around the rule.  I don't think that's going to fly so to speak.

The books (and music/video) do make things more complicated.  When you buy a book or a DVD what you are really buying is the right to access the material stored on that medium.  While you also get an "object", the object isn't what's copyrighted, its the stuff on the object.  The publishing industry (and I'm lumping print, audio, software, and video together) has blurred that distinction far to long and have helped generate the mess we are in now.  Consumers concentrate on the object they purchased and not what they were really buying, rights of access.

Note: This does not include performance art like music/tv/film/theater.  A band covering someone's music has to have a license to do so and that usually involves payments of royalties.  That's why DVD's have that warning on the first screen, for home use only.  If you want to show the video in a public gathering you have to have a different license.  It doesn't matter if you are doing for free.  You still need a different license.

This whole topic has gotten off track but I feel it is time that copyright laws are "reset" to the pre 1978 wording before they were corrupted by corporations. Copyrights should EXPIRE after 28 years unless they are renewed for ONE TIME ONLY for another 28 years after which they WILL EXPIRE and the material in question enters the PUBLIC DOMAIN FOREVER.

Congress passes the laws.  Courts interpret the laws.  The executive branch is tasked with enforcing the laws.  The only thing corporations can do to affect the law is to influence congress.  Within certain parameters, this is legal and reasonable.  A corporation should be able to work with government to give input about the laws affecting it.  The ultimate responsibility though is with congress and the courts.  Corporations do not and cannot "corrupt" the law.

In some ways, corporations are like kids.  They are going to push the limits and test authority.  If the parent simply gives a child what they want and there is a bad result, do we blame the kid for being spoiled?  No, we say it was bad parenting.  The same is true with the law.  If it was written poorly, blame congress.  If it was mis-interpreted, blame the courts.  If nobody will enforce it, blame the executive branch.  So the problem isn't "corporations corrupting the law" it is bad government.  It is our responsibility as voters to hold them accountable.  So ultimately, the buck stops with us.

The books should have been seized, but they probably didn't arrive in large enough quantities to trigger any action. If copyright holders want to stamp out graymarket activity they should price their products so as to prevent the potential for markup.

As much as the makeup of the court seems like it would favor the plaintiff in this case, as the article said, such a ruling would turn the US economy on its head. Also, a lot of large corporations are asking the court to overturn the lower court's ruling. Hopefully the high court will see the greater harm in upholding the lower court.

As for our trains, as I understand it, anything made in the US isn't even a problem. The stuff made in China was imported legally by US companies, and should also be covered. Is there even a potential for graymarket activity in the hobby market?

Would someone please explain what all of this has to do with toy trains?

At this moment in time, absolutely nothing.   But there are some here who fear that it may have further ramifications if the plaintiff is successful in this case. My personal thinking is that, unless you have a contact at the factory in China who will sell you substantial quantities of new products at a sufficiently low price that you can afford to ship the goods to the USA, and then sell them at a price way below RRP, that you have nothing at all to worry about.