3 ms·

I firstly don't understand why Wiley didn't sue the guy for the importation, rather than the resale. Importing copyrighted works for anything other than persona

by A1kmm 14y ago

I firstly don't understand why Wiley didn't sue the guy for the importation, rather than the resale. Importing copyrighted works for anything other than personal use unambiguously requires copyright holder permission by a plain reading of 17 U.S.C. 602 (http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/Title_17.txt http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/Title_17.txt). I think that is a bad law, but it is nevertheless an existing law. Instead, they try to argue that it is the resale which is illegal, which requires a very creative interpretation of the law, and somehow manage to convince a federal district court and the 2nd circuit of that interpretation. The interpretation that goods manufactured overseas are automatically not 'lawfully made under this title' is an extreme interpretation. The 2nd Circuit opinion said that 'lawfully made under this title' could mean any of '(1) "manufactured in the United States," (2) "any work made that is subject to protection under this title," or (3) "lawfully made under this title had this title been applicable."'. They decided that it means 1. However, to say that it means anything other than 3 seems to be stretching the plain text interpretation. 'Lawfully made under this law' is synonymous for 'Lawfully made, according to this law'. They claim that the justification for their ruling is that 17 U.S.C. 602 would be inapplicable if they took anything other than interpretation 1, and so congress must have meant interpretation 1. But this is simply false by the plain text interpretation of the statute. If interpretation 3 is the right one, then it would be legal to import a copy of a copyrighted work in your personal baggage for personal use, and it would be legal to sell it in the US if you later decided you didn't want it, provided the circumstances in which that copy was made would have been legal under US law, but it would still be illegal under 17 U.S.C. 602 to import copies for the purpose of selling them, since 17 U.S.C. 109 only covers "sell[ing] or otherwise dispos[ing] of the possession of that copy or phonorecord". Disclaimer: IANAL, this is not legal advice.

btilly 14y ago
I have not been following the case. But normal practice is that when you sue someone, you put forth every legal argument that you can think of in the hope that at least one sticks. And any lines of reasoning that come with minimum damages are even better, because you want to sue for as much as you can. (I believe that copyright infringement comes with fairly significant minimum penalties.) This often leads to weird counter-factual arguments of the form, "A is true, and if A is true, then my client should win. Even if A proves false, B is true, and if B is true then my client should win. Even if B is also false..." If you think A you can show that A is true, why do you need the rest? Because this is about convincing the judge, not about the rest. No matter how clearly A is true, there is a chance the judge will disagree with you, and you still want to leave them a way to rule in your favor. Not, IANAL, this is likewise not legal advice.
Natsu 14y ago
Yeah, their reading of that statute is absurd, but the reason they argued this way is because they really want to be able to clamp down on individuals reselling their own goods. This follows previous attempts to expand the control copyright holders can exert, like Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc. Hopefully this gets shut down, or we'll start seeing paperback books with EULAs printed on the first page, taking us all the way back to Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus.

by A1kmm 14y ago

btilly 14y ago

I have not been following the case. But normal practice is that when you sue someone, you put forth every legal argument that you can think of in the hope that at least one sticks. And any lines of reasoning that come with minimum damages are even better, because you want to sue for as much as you can. (I believe that copyright infringement comes with fairly significant minimum penalties.) This often leads to weird counter-factual arguments of the form, "A is true, and if A is true, then my client should win. Even if A proves false, B is true, and if B is true then my client should win. Even if B is also false..." If you think A you can show that A is true, why do you need the rest? Because this is about convincing the judge, not about the rest. No matter how clearly A is true, there is a chance the judge will disagree with you, and you still want to leave them a way to rule in your favor. Not, IANAL, this is likewise not legal advice.

Natsu 14y ago

Yeah, their reading of that statute is absurd, but the reason they argued this way is because they really want to be able to clamp down on individuals reselling their own goods. This follows previous attempts to expand the control copyright holders can exert, like Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc. Hopefully this gets shut down, or we'll start seeing paperback books with EULAs printed on the first page, taking us all the way back to Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus.