Quote:
Originally Posted by Gwen Morse
Do you have any reading links that point to the lawsuit you mention?
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It's Costco vs Omega (or Omega vs Costco), in which Costco legally bought watches abroad and sold them in the US, and Omega claims Costco violated their copyright. (Or maybe trademark? No, it says copyright but I'm a bit lost on how that is, given that the items in question are watches.)
Some links:
Costco Copyright Case Pending Before Supreme Court Has Internet Impact
Supreme Court rules in favor of Omega:
Copyright law generally allows someone who has purchased a copyrighted work to do whatever they want with it -- that's how libraries lend books and why yard sales are legal. But part of the copyright law makes it unclear if the "first sale doctrine" applies when the product is manufactured outside the U.S. and the "first sale" is out of the U.S. It's this issue that the Court effectively failed to decide this time.
Okay, the case is over, but the precedent is blurry. If the precedent were solid, it'd mean nobody was allowed to buy *anything* copyrighted overseas and then sell it in the US; buying a book on vacation and then selling it at a yard sale would be illegal.
I think the matter of "go to Europe, download public domain ebooks, burn to disc, bring discs to US and sell them" is covered by the same laws as "go to Europe, buy books not available in the US, bring to US and sell them."