Re: Re: Derivative Inquiry

I have a serious legal problem with trying to do by contract what the statute does not allow. The statute has the first sale doctrine in it. The copyright holder has few rights in how that single physical copy gets used. The copyright owner just has rights regarding reproduction, derivative works, performance, display, etc. And even then the right to display one's own copy goes with the copy, not the copyright in the intellectual work.

Surely the desire of the publisher of the workbooks is to sell new ones every year, or daily or whatever. But, that does not make an owner of a workbook an infringer when the owner frustrates that desire. I can do the math workbook by requiring the answers to be written on a separate sheet of paper. Does anyone claim that this common practice violates copyright?

Where then is the relevant distinction between that and a laminate cover that allows one to write and erase the answers?

No. Copyright does not extend this far. And should not.

Steve

-- 
Prof. Steven Jamar
Howard University School of Law