RE: [dvd-discuss] Slightly OT - Japanese copyrights

["Dean Sanchez" <DSanchez(at)fcci-group.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Thompson [mailto:bruce@otherother.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 3:17 PM
To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] Slightly OT - Japanese copyrights

On 2002.02.28 Bruce Thompson wrote:
>Hi again,

>On 2002.02.28 12:06 Noah silva wrote:
>     [ snip ]
> 
>> I don't think that a particular copy means a particular PHYSICAL copy.
>> If I pay and download my copy, then there is no physical copy I bought,
>> just ownership of one copy.  I reject that one copy is more valid than
>> another just because it was commercially produced with a pretty label.
>> 
>
>Here I tend to get more muddled. In the case of downloaded works my gut 
>says that first sale rights do not attach since there was no transaction 
>involving a particular copy fixed in a tangible medium, but fair use 
>rights always apply. The closest analogy for me would be cable television 
>(please not I am specifically excluding pay-per-view). By paying a monthly 
>fee the cable company delivers content to your residence. You have full 
>fair use rights to that content but first sale does not attach. In  my 
>mind this is the best model for the purchase of downloaded content.
v
>In the specific case of Pay-Per-View, I believe that the above _should_ be 
>the case as well though I suspect that most Pay-Per-View agreements 
>contain language specifically to discourage that view.

I would tend to disagree.  "First Sale" is first sale of an item.  I purchased an electronic "copy" of a copyrighted item.  What medium it is in is irrelevant.  I purchased and now own the "right" to one copy with all the attendant "fair use" and "first sale" rights.

If this isn't true, I can easily foresee a future with no "First Sale" rights at all because the Copyright Industry (CI) would only release material in downloaded form.  Let's take another item besides movies or audio.  Take books.  It is reaching the point that books will be "printed on demand".  I order a book that I want, dump it to a cdr and take it to a kiosk to be printed or order it directly at the kiosk.  It was delivered in electronic form; are you now proposing that I should have no "first sale" rights?  

I think this is a very slippery slope to pursue.  However, it may be irrelevant if the CI gets its way.  General use computers and open source operating systems will be illegal anyway in its world which is not far off if it can "buy" enough senators and representatives like Fritz Holdings.