Re: Bye Bye First-Sale Doctrine (WIPO bill)

On Fri, August 14, 1998, Joseph Liu <liu3[_at_]law.harvard.edu> wrote:
>
> On 8/11/98, Laurel Jamtgaard <laurelj[_at_]arl.org> wrote:
> >
> > FYI. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act passed by the House last
> > week contains a significant last-minute addition that, if included
> > in the final bill, would overturn a March 1998 Supreme Court
> > Decision, Quality King Distributors, Inc. v. L-Anza Research
> > International, Inc. (Court held that the "First-sle" doctrine
> > applies to U.S. copyrighted works sold overseas. The result in the
> > Supreme Court case was that shampoo bottles (with copyrighted labels)
> > sold overseas for a lower price than they were sold in the U.S. could
> > be purchased overseas and re-sold in the U.S. without seeking the
> > copyright holder's permission.)
>
> If Congress wanted to bar "gray market" goods or "parallel imports"
> (and I know nothing about policy reasons for or against such
> regulation), using copyright law (to regulate the labels, no less)
> seems like a colossally ill-suited way of doing so. Can anyone
> think of any legitimate *copyright* justification for this rule?

It is my understanding that the officials within the Commerce Department really hate to enforce bans on parallel imports due to trademark infringement claims so that manufacturers are attempting to assert control through copyright claims. Can anyone substantiate this?

L. Hopkins, J.D.
Intelliware International
Roseville, Minnesota
<lkhopkins[_at_]intelliwareint.com> Received on Thu Aug 20 1998 - 02:05:08 GMT