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| Copyright Violations |
The Supreme Court's recent Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons ruling affecting first-sale doctrine and its legal ramifications Re intellectual property (IP) lends itself tangent to a previous topic A Legal Used Ebook Market? Who Would This Screw the Most?
The ruling essentially says its ok for someone to legally purchase books cheaper overseas, then import and resell them in this country without the copyright holder's permission.
But, as we will discover, other legal strategies exist to compensate for copyright's weaknesses.
Hopefully this will add more intelligencia to the 'A Legal Used Ebook Market? Who would This Screw the Most? post.
From Lisa Shuchman writing for Law.com:
Next Moves for IP Law after SCOTUS First-Sale Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court's Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons ruling that a legally obtained copyrighted work can be imported into the U.S. and resold without permission from the copyright owner, even if it was manufactured and sold overseas, will have broad legal ramifications going forward, intellectual property attorneys say.
Industries that rely on copyright protection, such as book publishers, film and television companies, and software publishers, will begin operating differently. Lawyers will start testing alternative legal strategies that could give their clients the protections they thought they had under copyright law. Congress may try to pass new legislation to grant those protections. Meanwhile, other forms of intellectual property protection could be affected by the Court's ruling, as could U.S. international trade negotiations.
The 6-3 decision was prompted by a case involving Supap Kirtsaeng, a Thai student who imported lower-priced textbooks from Thailand and resold them in the U.S. to help pay for his studies at Cornell University and the University of Southern California. Textbook publisher John Wiley & Sons sued, saying Kirtsaeng's unauthorized importation and sale of its books amounted to copyright infringement, and that the "first-sale" doctrine — under which people who buy something may resell it without permission — does not apply because the books were produced overseas for sale overseas.
Industries that rely on copyright protection, such as book publishers, film and television companies, and software publishers, will begin operating differently. Lawyers will start testing alternative legal strategies that could give their clients the protections they thought they had under copyright law. Congress may try to pass new legislation to grant those protections. Meanwhile, other forms of intellectual property protection could be affected by the Court's ruling, as could U.S. international trade negotiations.
"This decision will have a large impact on law and business," said Shari Mulrooney Wollman, co-chair of the intellectual property practice at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.
The 6-3 decision was prompted by a case involving Supap Kirtsaeng, a Thai student who imported lower-priced textbooks from Thailand and resold them in the U.S. to help pay for his studies at Cornell University and the University of Southern California. Textbook publisher John Wiley & Sons sued, saying Kirtsaeng's unauthorized importation and sale of its books amounted to copyright infringement, and that the "first-sale" doctrine — under which people who buy something may resell it without permission — does not apply because the books were produced overseas for sale overseas.
"This was the publishing industry's understanding of the law for at least three decades," said Anderson Duff, an attorney with Wolf Greenfield. "Everyone is pretty stunned."
4 comments:
It is quite ironic that this case involves textbooks. The Publishing industry has carefully shaped the copyright law in the last 40 years by lobbying for what it wants from Congress and by selectively enforcing those laws by choosing the venues (ie friendly federal districts) in which to expand those laws. Fair Use for instance, was clearly allowed under statute (within limits) but is now virtually dead. This has a major impact on the evolution of thought in this country. Policing, or fear of it, limits teaching, quoting, or debating from textbooks. The authors for textbooks are mostly underpaid contract employees and have no copyright rights. The rights go to giant media companies. Might this fight be founded on greed?
Bill, Thanks for your input :) You do make some legit points, but:
"Policing, or fear of it, limits teaching, quoting, or debating from textbooks."
--- I disagree with this statement as teaching, quoting, or debating from textbooks is the very purpose of textbooks and why they were purchased and what drives the demand for them (how they make money for their authors).
"The authors for textbooks are mostly underpaid contract employees and have no copyright rights."
--- Authors for textbooks are not mostly contract employees; they are generally their own agents with all rights retained.
You might be referring to grad student researchers (or teachers wanting to move up the tenure line)that are forced to write and publish in academic journals that DO INDEED screw them over by giving them no rights and make tons of money off their labor --- I've posted on academic publishing on numerous occasions. One of my pet peaves.
"The rights go to giant media companies. Might this fight be founded on greed?"
--- In the case of academic journals and not general textbooks, I agree.
Hi John,
In my close to forty years of experience, textbook authors are not savvy when they sign their first contract and standard publishing contracts are written to take away ALL RIGHT from the author and put them into the hands of the publisher.
I am a textbook author who, early in her career, had a very savvy lawyer, who got me copyright for most of my books, but I am among the few who own the copyright.
Textbook authors are increasingly treated, at least by upper level management, as paid-too-high content writers, and in this case anyway, Bill Tee's description of our role in the business is more accurate or at least closer to my experience.
Perhaps there are differences among the disciplines and authors of business texts might know how to read and revise a contract to make it more in their favor. But this has not been my experience in the humanities.
@CCK - Thanks for your comment and experience :)
Every textbook writer has access to the same level of expertise that you had. Granted, some may be naive, but, is this caused by the 'publishing industry' as a whole as Bill indicated and some conspiracy on their part? --- Or is it the fault of greedy individual buying institutions (some in higher ed itself) that are contracting for the particular textbook?
One thing I forgot to ask Bill was 'who are these underpaid contract employees, and by whom are they contracted?'
I feel he might be referring to teachers or other professionals working for an educational institution that, quite often, have dragonian employee agreement constraints --- and I addressed this situation in my response to his comment and generally agree with him Re this particular situation.
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