if you've ever sold/given away anything at all, read this!

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(clicky)if you've ever sold or even just given away a used ipod, you may have violated copyright law!
SCOTUS will decide later this year. i expect the worst from them.

This is the beginning of the end of used marketplace websites - they want to get rid of people living off the grid - people buying used things. They want to increase consumer demand of the US as a whole seeing as how they're rapidly shrinking as a percentage of GDP

prison nation [fascism] here we come!

Dear Aunt Blabby, If I buy (bought) an iPod, iPad, or anything else, and register it as its owner, how can anyone tell me what to do with it, especially if I have proof of legal purchase, credit card/ATM card transaction, store receipt, etc....I can give you a sweatshirt that does not fit, or hold a garage sale and sell cassettes and books and legally purchased CDs and DVDs.....I can clear out my laptop and sell it on eBay, so what silliness is THIS?
Not saying you are silly, saying this idea is silly!

Sylkat

Last edited by Sylkat on 23 Jun 2012, 4:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This probably won't hold up in court, and if it did, there would be a huge public backlash.

It's understandable what the big corp's are trying to do. People buy cheaper versions overseas of items that are sold in America for much more, and sell the items for cheaper than what the item costs new in the US, and don't have to pay royalties. It's understandable that the corp's are PO'd.

They have to understand that with the global market comes an equalizing of living standards too, so making a radio for $3 and selling it in China for $10 and in America for $100 and pocketing the profit from the American sale isn't going to happen anymore. America has been a cash cow for so long, because our standard of living was so high compared to the rest of the world, that now that the cash cow has been slaughtered the companies are panicking.

The ultimate solution is likely for the companies to do what Degen, a Chinese Army owned maker of shortwave radios, did, and make totally separate and incompatible versions for the US and the rest of the world. Degen was selling a radio called the DE1102 for $30 in China and $120 in the US, as the Kaito KA1102, different name but same radio. Hong Kong entrepreneurs were buying up Degen DE1102 radios and selling them on Ebay for $55, making a nice profit and undercutting Degen's US operation. The HK entrepreneurs were doing this with many other radios from un-savvy Chinese factories.

So Degen (and others) canned their old lines, and introduced separate radios for China and the US. The China-specific models were labeled in Chinese only and came with Chinese only manuals. The US models were totally different radios. China-specific models are still available on Ebay, but Americans must either know Chinese or rely on notoriously bad third party English manual translations. I think that's the ultimate answer. The companies will, of course, try to change the law via judicial fiat, but the secondary effects of what they're asking would be so devastating to Americans and America, banning all sales of ANY secondhand merchandise, that the SCOTUS likely will never agree to it.

What, precisely have you bought? Have you bought the object, or have you bought an irrevocable, non-transferrable license to use the object? The two things are legally very different.

You should never make the assumption that taking possession of an object implies that you have acquired perfect title to that object. It might have been the commercial standard in decades gone by--but I suspect that increasingly we will be moving into other territory as property interests become less tangible.

speaking as james q. public [dr./esq?] and not as a sharp-minded legal eagle, what is your personal opinion regarding this? if you were an american, would you be happy about losing your legal ability as an american, to sell your surplus goods or even give them to charity? would you not feel a degree of additional disenfranchisement as an american citizen? how would you FEEL?