Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.

poke poke Unless of course, you are Disney

Perhaps people have that idea, simply because the courts have allowed the clock to stop or turn back – for corporations with enough cash.

When did manufacturing overseas come to mean discounting products for those countries and raising prices over here to pay for it?

Do you know of any cases where, as you say, “Judges have done so”?

The statute in question is pretty clear — if I run off ten thousand copies of your book without your permission and try to bring them into the states to sell, you — and the customs service — can stop me.

It’s insane to suggest that the “clear intent of congress” was to act as though this law made no distinction between books printed by a bootlegger and books printed by someone you yourself assigned the rights to manufacture and sell the books abroad.  The statute itself makes that distinction — “lawfully made under this title.”

Overturning something as fundamental as  the first sale doctrine on the basis of a tortured, illogical-bordering-on-corrupt interpretation of a statute that has never been read as such in all the time it has existed — is insane, regardless of whether or not the second circuit did it.

Perhaps they could put a diary lock on the textbook, with a stern warning to anyone outside the intended region that unlocking the book outside of the intended region counts as circumvention of their copy protection scheme.

This tightwad policy has made the school founders millionaires.

The media cartels consider themselves in the same position, as gatekeepers for entertainment, and lead to nonsense like the Jammie Thomas verdict upheld today.

Scalia is very consistent though. Whenever I hear about a Supreme Court case quite often I can predict which way Scalia voted : I think about what I think is the right thing and then guess Scalia voted the opposite…

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1990/02/26/1990_02_26_042_TNY_CARDS_000353816

Specifically, I’ve heard of some software who recognize that they make useful things, and while their business model counts on them charging for licenses in rich nations, they had clauses that developing nations could use their stuff for free.  The (now depreciated) creative commons developing nations license reflected that desire.

If a license is the same as owning a thing, people who gave away their stuff out of charity might get bit by those practically legally pirating it.

(Not that we’re yet to the point where that might be a problem.)

Except, we’re only one simple congressional bill away from that, since Alito & Kagan wrote in their concurrence that Congress could change the current law to give copyright holders more protection.

“There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.”