Linked by Paul Cesarini on Mon 8th Sep 2003 03:02 UTC
Thanks to a provision in the 1976 Copyright Act, U.S. law allows the first purchaser of copyrighted material (a book, CD, etc) to subsequently re-sell that item without the copyright owner's consent. In this age of online distribution and the budding, halting attempts at legitimizing it, is the the right to re-sell going to be upheld?
Permalink for comment
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE: Artem
I would have to do more reading to be sure but I think the issue is the language used.
"allows the first purchaser"
This would refer to the first purchaser of the item gives that purchaser a signle copy. I think the language of first refers to the chain of purchases from the copyright. THus this gives the abilty to always stay one transaction removed from the copyright holder but dosen't allow the purchaser to claim they have the right to produce duplicates. I think that is a key work codified in law.
Examples:
should : An action that may or may not be perfromed. It is not required.
shall : AN action that must be performed.
(These definitions or from the NRC of the USA)
A shovel could could be sold just like a cd and since there are no patents or copyrights on a shovel you can reproduce them and sell them. I think the 1976 law was drawing a distinction between a music album being an produced work or a work for hire.
Defiently need a US goverment lawyer to get the fine points on that one.
Donaldson