Quote:
Originally Posted by taustin
The issue was whether or not it was legal to import books to sell in violation of another countries laws, specifically when those laws conflict with US law and international treaties the US has signed.
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No, the issue was whether it was legal to sell (or "distribute") copyrighted content purchased under another nation's copyright laws. This affects everyone who visits a foreign country, buys a book to read, brings it home, and offers to give it to a neighbor when they're done with it. The case was created because of a purchase-with-intent-to-sell situation, but the prosecution wasn't looking for a ruling limited to those circumstances--they wanted it to be illegal to sell foreign copyrighted material, period. (For understandable reasons; it's awfully hard to prove "purchased for resale purposes.")
The end result would've been that I can't resell the book I ordered from Finland without getting permission from the copyright holder. There is no US edition (or I would've happily skipped the ~$20 shipping fee). The prosecution tried very hard to ignore the fact that many copyrighted works manufactured in other countries have no "US edition" that a customer could purchase instead.
The original ruling was so broad it would prevent resale of cars and mp3 players if they weren't entirely manufactured in the US. (Well, not "prevent." They'd just have to get permission from every owner of copyright for the software in their automobile before they could sell the car.)
I can understand manufacturers wanting to maintain low-cost zones of sales, and I'm in favor of arranging laws so they can do so, but they can't do it by banning all resales of objects outside of their original sale zone.