4 ms·

The Doctrine of First Sale is like Fair Use in that it sets specific limits to the number and nature of situations in which publishers and authors can demand re

by alexqgb 14y ago

The Doctrine of First Sale is like Fair Use in that it sets specific limits to the number and nature of situations in which publishers and authors can demand recompense for copying and / or redistributing their work. So no, you haven't robbed anyone in the case of a second hand sale, since the law never recognized an obligation for buyers of second hand media to pay authors and publishers in the first place. This underscores the extent to which the determination of theft depends not on the making of copies itself, but on the parallel (and completely artificial) institution that attaches legal obligations to the act of copying in certain, specific cases.

icebraining 14y ago
But the fact that I have a legal right to deprive someone doesn't mean I'm not. My first question stands: am I depriving and inflicting harm on RHCP by selling an used album?
- alexqgb 14y ago
  To the extent that you've diluted the market for new copies in some small but real way, then yes, you have theoretically harmed the author. However, the law doesn't recognize that harm as significant enough to be legally actionable. To the contrary, it recognizes that always placing the interests of authors above those of the public would do the public intolerable harm, and that the author is going to have to live with a less-than perfectly controlled market if he wants any control at all. What the author of a desirable work CAN expect is that there will be a reasonable volume of exchanges in which unavoidable obligations to pay do arise. Based on these he (or, more likely, his publisher) can invest in production accordingly. If your copies and exchanges take place outside this range, then there's no way for the publisher to claim he's being unreasonably harmed by them, since the law gave him no reason to expect that he'd profit from these transactions in the first place. But if they take place within the parameters of demand that the law allowed him to bank against, then the illegal dilution of his legally recognized market constitutes very real harm.
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by alexqgb 14y ago

icebraining 14y ago

But the fact that I have a legal right to deprive someone doesn't mean I'm not. My first question stands: am I depriving and inflicting harm on RHCP by selling an used album?

alexqgb 14y ago
To the extent that you've diluted the market for new copies in some small but real way, then yes, you have theoretically harmed the author. However, the law doesn't recognize that harm as significant enough to be legally actionable. To the contrary, it recognizes that always placing the interests of authors above those of the public would do the public intolerable harm, and that the author is going to have to live with a less-than perfectly controlled market if he wants any control at all. What the author of a desirable work CAN expect is that there will be a reasonable volume of exchanges in which unavoidable obligations to pay do arise. Based on these he (or, more likely, his publisher) can invest in production accordingly. If your copies and exchanges take place outside this range, then there's no way for the publisher to claim he's being unreasonably harmed by them, since the law gave him no reason to expect that he'd profit from these transactions in the first place. But if they take place within the parameters of demand that the law allowed him to bank against, then the illegal dilution of his legally recognized market constitutes very real harm.

deleted 14y ago

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