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RE: [dvd-discuss] Open with caution



I agree completely.  In this case, unsolicited materials = gift.  It's on
the FTC website, I think.

But I was looking at it more as a future "end run" around the older SC
decision,
and getting them to revisit what (I thought) was settled and pretty clear.
You buy a book, you own it, and you can sell it.


 It seems to me that this is the vanguard, and we're going to start
seeing (more) shrinkwrapped books.  Eventually, I would think that
someone would challenge this.  My (hopefully paranoid) fear is that 
the courts today would buy into the thinking the author describes; 
"Well, it's okay for software and music, or for the e-version of this text, 
so why should it be different for a written  medium?  You're making 
a transient copy on the back of your retina,  aren't you? (You filthy 
word-pirate, you!)"

I hope common sense would prevail, but I wouldn't bet on it.

David Kroll


 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Richard Hartman [mailto:hartman@onetouch.com] 
Sent:	Friday, August 16, 2002 12:00 PM
To:	'dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu'
Subject:	RE: [dvd-discuss] Open with caution  

Don't know if that's as much of a slam-dunk as you
think, Dave.  At least, not with that precedent.


Well, as such I think this falls under a different
precedent.  IIRC any item recieved -unsolicited-
in the mail is a "gift", and no terms can be 
attached.  (Does anybody have the cite for this,
or am I completely misremembering?)


-- 
-Richard M. Hartman
hartman@onetouch.com

186,000 mi/sec: not just a good idea, it's the LAW!



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kroll, Dave [mailto:Dave_Kroll@cargilldow.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 2:24 PM
> To: 'dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu'
> Subject: RE: [dvd-discuss] Open with caution 
> 
> 
> "...But if someone wants to slap some legalese of dubious 
> merit on the front
> of a book, why shouldn't they? Software publishers have been 
> doing it for
> years, after all, so it only seems fair that publishers of 
> other forms of
> intellectual property should have the same right to try to 
> put restrictions
> on how customers use their products...."
> 
> I would hope that the first time this gets before the courts, 
> it gets thrown
> out
> on its ear.  (I don't recall the SCoTUS case that said a book 
> publisher
> could
> not insist on a certain price when a book was resold.)  Using that
> precedent, it's a slam dunk, right?  "You can't do this in 
> books because
> the Supreme Court said so."
>