Re: Effect of Assignments of IP on Prior Licenses

Mark Lemley points out:
>
> By prohibiting transfers in the license agreement, vendors . . .
> can engage in price discrimination (ie. small companies pay a
> little, large companies pay a lot).

    This is an excellent point, and indeed software vendors sometimes do engage in price discrimination, especially when they sell fairly expensive programs to businesses.

    But it seems to me this price discrimination is generally a good thing, and the bar the First Sale Doctrine puts on price discrimination is a bad thing. Buyers who get more benefit out of a copyrighted work -- for instance, large companies that have more people using it on a central computer, or videostores that rent out videos -- should pay more. It seems to me fairer, and economically more efficient (or am I mistaken on that?).

    In fact, I'd guess that if video sellers could discriminate between individuals and video stores, buying videos would cost much less (though renting them may cost a bit more).

    Cf. also the importation right, which seems to me an acknowledgement of the benefits of price discrimiantion.

• Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law <volokh[_at_]law.ucla.edu>