On 18 Aug 1998, Terry Carroll <carroll[_at_]tjc.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 18 Aug 1998, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 13 Aug 1998 Joseph Liu <liu3[_at_]law.harvard.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > 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?
> >
> > Here are some ideas:
> >
> > (A) Quality and Brand Integrity.
>
> That's a trademark justification, not a copyright justification. Misuse
> of the trademark should remain actionable under the trademark statute.
Can you explain how you would do this? Would you plead that your client's own trademark misrepresented his own product? As I recall trademark law, it everything pivots on the origin of the product.
The copyright in the label provides unique leverage to a manufacturer of shampoo under the proposed law.
The importer could rebottle the stuff.
Counterfeit bottles would more appropriately be the subject of trade mark infringements.
> > (C) Privacy.
>
> Again, this is a privacy justification, not a copyright justification.
> If the present laws governing privacy are insufficent to protect privacy
> interests, those laws should be amended, not shorn up with copyright
> laws, whose aim is not to protect privacy.
Copyright applies to privacy. Some examples:
Hemingway, I believe, did not wish his early works to be reprinted. They may have been in print abroad.
He asserted his copyright.
THE BELL JAR, by Sylvia Plath, was published in Britain but not the United States I believe at the behest of the Plath estate.
They asserted their copyright.
> > (D) Fostering U.S. investment. Copyright law once included
> > a barrier to imports of works by U.S. authors printed abroad.
>
> Yes, and that highly criticized law was permitted to expire.
The U.S. printing industry no longer needed it.
> This is not causing investment in copyright; it's casing investment in
> the uncopyrighted substance (the shampoo or whatever), by effectively
> broadening the scope of copyright to cover uncopyrighted substances.
> It's antithetical to the purpose of copyright not consistent with it.
Under the proposal as I understand it the copyright covers only the label and fosters the interests of the manufacturer.
Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com Received on Thu Aug 20 1998 - 00:05:31 GMT
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