Could the end of re-selling foreign manufactured goods be near? Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-right-to-resell-your-own-s...

" The case stems from Supap Kirtsaeng’s college experience. A native of Thailand, Kirtsaeng came to the U.S. in 1997 to study at Cornell University. When he discovered that his textbooks, produced by Wiley, were substantially cheaper to buy in Thailand than they were in Ithaca, N.Y., he rallied his Thai relatives to buy the books and ship them to him in the U.S.

He then sold them on eBay, making upwards of $1.2 million, according to court documents.Wiley, which admitted that it charged less for books sold abroad than it did in the U.S., sued him for copyright infringement. Kirtsaeng countered with the first-sale doctrine. "

According to this, what is at stake is the First-sale Doctrine in copyright law from 1908, which held that the owner only had copyright control for the first sale. This lawsuit (Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons) coming up through the courts, were it has been upheld in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that this doctrine only applies to US manufactured goods.

Would be interesting to see how big of an economic hit this would have in the US if upheld by the Supreme Court.

I think this has come up before with Costco.

link

riznick said:   I think this has come up before with Costco.

link

More up to date here and Omega got smacked down for the silly attempt:http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111117/03284416803/court-tell...

What Omega was doing is not quite the same OP's setup. At least with textbooks, the copyright directly applies. For Omega, they just went way beyond bounds of what copyright is for.

germanpope said:   time and time again, good ideas blow up when people push them too far

Forget the fact that the publisher sells the same exact item for a fraction of the cost in another country. It's somehow this guys fault for pushing too far??

Capitalism at it's finest. When I go to Thailand , I buy $2/3 items I can resell in the USA for $20-50. There should be nothing wrong with this. I applaud the kid for doing it on a large scale

I think a revolt of a massive scale would occur if this were enforced and enacted. Technically you could not have garage sales or sell nothing second hand. That effects way to many people for them to be able to easily implement. Now if this was just scoped down to one particular product or good it gets by.

SUCKISSTAPLES said:   Capitalism at it's finest. When I go to Thailand , I buy $2/3 items I can resell in the USA for $20-50. There should be nothing wrong with this. I applaud the kid for doing it on a large scale

Yup, only in the United States.. (do you get punished for it)

doveroftke said:   robstrash said:   germanpope said:   time and time again, good ideas blow up when people push them too far

Forget the fact that the publisher sells the same exact item for a fraction of the cost in another country. It's somehow this guys fault for pushing too far??

I think you're both wrong. Price discrimination is good economic sense. Textbooks are ridiculously overpriced and I'm no fan of their publishers, but if they can sell a copy to someone in another country for more than their marginal cost, why shouldn't they? And if someone sees an opportunity to make some money by exploiting the difference, why shouldn't he? Both sides to this debate perfectly illustrate different parts of the global market.

Why are they still making money on it when they sell it cheap overseas? Is it because they are over-charging here to such a large degree? Foreign editions that I have purchased in the past were typically printed on cheaper paper with poorer bindings.

DamnoIT said:   I think a revolt of a massive scale would occur if this were enforced and enacted. Technically you could not have garage sales or sell nothing second hand. That effects way to many people for them to be able to easily implement. Now if this was just scoped down to one particular product or good it gets by.

The government would just hire 10s of thousands of new TSA agents and send them out to bust up yard sales and flea markets.

Wondering if I'm going to be obliged to dismantle the foreign made parts of my automobile before I sell it. I don't know...that might make it difficult to drive and somehow less appealing to the prospective buyers.

hmmmm

This is all maneuvering that will be unlikely to cause the wide ramifications feared....

As the article notes at the end ,

"If the Supreme Court does rule with the appellate court, it’s likely the matter would be brought to Congress to force a change in law. Until then, however, consumers would be stuck between a rock and a hard place when trying to resell their stuff."

The judicial system must uphold the current laws, if it is bound to uphold the decision , it will. However there would next be action by congress to change the law, because the ramifications would be insane if people were not allowed to resell their used foreign made possessions without permission

I think the copyright lawsuits are going out of hand. If he was selling grey market camera from China at New York, he is not going to get sued by Canon or Nikon. These are just grey market text books! I remember there was a professor who uses the textbook he wrote for the class and he would come out with a new edition every 2 years. He would tell you the first day if you should get the newest edition because there are vital information in the new one that would affect your grades. What a rip off.

I believe I may have purchased from this fellow or his relatives in Thailand and saved around $60 on a single textbook.

Recently I've been reading new books to stay up to date with the technology and contemporary styles in my field of graphic arts. One text, Design Basics 8th ed, by Lauer & Pentak was highly recommended, but Amazon had it for over $100. I sourced it on eBay for just over $40. which included free FedEx shipping. The seller had a lot (9,000+) of strong feedback so I took a chance. Three days later the text arrived via FedEx from Thailand. The book is identical in every way (I've checked) to its USA/Canada counterpart with the lone exception being the front cover which is almost half grey with the words, "International Edition". The text includes an online access code for extended materials just like the USA/Canada version. (Code is often missing on used versions, which still cost more than the "International Edition).

This is embarrassing for publishers like Wiley and others, (my text is published by Wadsworth Publishing) who elect to clobber American/Canadian students with outrageously priced textbooks while charging or even subsidizing dramatically lower prices overseas. It would be interesting to hear their reasoning. I realize this point is not one any court will likely ask, but is a question domestic buyers should be aware of.

I have also purchased full opera vocal scores like Le Nozze di Figaro and The Magic Flute published by Baren Rieter in Germany, which are considerably less expensive if purchased from European/UK sellers. This is understandable as there is an importer/distributor in the USA, who services retailers here and is making a profit for his efforts. This apparently isn't so in Wiley's case as their price actually decreases the farther one gets from the original source (publisher). If their "International Model", at least as far as Thailand is concerned, followed the classic model, Thai students would be paying around $200 for this textbook.

As a father, with kids in college (It's my daughter who uses the vocal scores, certainly not me ) I'd really like to know why US students get stuck with the high prices. I hope the US Supreme Court doesn't do away with 100+ years of legal precedent with the stroke of their collective pen and have a dramatic impact on all forms of commerce in the future.

<Q> These are just grey market text books! </Q>
No, these are the same books, published by the same publisher, still for profit. They just want to squeeze more out of the US students cause US students get big juicy loans. If they sold these textbooks for the same price in Thailand, they know people would just buy 1 copy and the rest of the class would make photocopies.

Well I've bought an overseas book (indian medical book)- it was advertised with the same ISBN number, and was not sold as an international edition. When I received it, the paper and photo quality (magazine to newspaper like) makes the book almost unuseable. Not everythign is the same quality.

SUCKISSTAPLES said:   This is all maneuvering that will be unlikely to cause the wide ramifications feared....

As the article notes at the end ,

"If the Supreme Court does rule with the appellate court, it’s likely the matter would be brought to Congress to force a change in law. Until then, however, consumers would be stuck between a rock and a hard place when trying to resell their stuff."

The judicial system must uphold the current laws, if it is bound to uphold the decision , it will. However there would next be action by congress to change the law, because the ramifications would be insane if people were not allowed to resell their used foreign made possessions without permission

I wouldn't be so sure about that at all. All the lobbying is in the direction of strengthening copyrights, even though copyright protection is unimaginably stronger than when it was originally created or than the founders could even imagine. You think this guy is going to be lobbying Congress for changes? The big lobbying corporations don't care about someone's garage sale, they care about exactly this type of scenario, professional importation and resale. Heck, we'll be lucky if Disney copyrights EVER expire.

eandtee said:   This is embarrassing for publishers like Wiley and others, (my text is published by Wadsworth Publishing) who elect to clobber American/Canadian students with outrageously priced textbooks while charging or even subsidizing dramatically lower prices overseas. It would be interesting to hear their reasoning. I realize this point is not one any court will likely ask, but is a question domestic buyers should be aware of.

how is it embarrassing or clobbering? North Americans are simply more willing/able to pay higher prices for textbooks than people in other countries are.

cristinaaaron said:   This is another reason why our kids are running up huge student loan bills to pay for college. A kid taking a full load of classes can easily spend $2k a year on just books now......if you are in a specialty like medicine or engineering, you could easily spend several times that. It is unfair that someone in Asia can buy these same books for 10% of what you pay.

If I own something, why can't I control how it's sold in different markets?

Schools and professor are just as guilty as the publishers. Most recently when I took some programming classes in the local CC from retired MSFT folks, they made textbook optional and taught mostly out of downloadable notes. That's a good start but I don't expect most teachers who are just seeing their job as a meal ticket to give a rats behind.

Kids, ask your professors to allow prior editions and challenge them to justify requiring the latest edition.

This is also a problem with high school books where quality control are s*its. A few small group decide what textbook to use and doesn't even bother to proof read them. http://www.textbookleague.org/ttlindex.htm

In this day and age, the students deserve better than these dirty outfits that produces junk products.

Surely this is great for the consumer right?

I mean who doesn't wanna pay more for every item they buy.

I mean look how well Made In USA campaigns go everytime they are tried:

Made In USA Item: $40
Made in anywhere else: $4

Consumer buys cheapest item, Made in USA campaign falls flat on face after
a few good sales pushes, and it goes back to being a dead horse.

Same concept applies here, the guy found a good deal and capitalized on it.
There's websites that sell codes to games for 20-50% off what they charge
you in the US.

Same item, same quality, same serial #'s that work, no differences except who they
are selling to.

Who Says his relatives still aren't doing it?
He just wants to be the USA division head