On 3/10/2015 12:55 PM, co...@ccil.org wrote: > Fortunately, books are also sold -- > at least so far, though nothing stops book publishers from putting > the same sort of notice into each copy of a book and gutting the > used-book market. A Supreme Court case does:
The precise question, therefore, in this case is, does the sole right to vend (named in ยง 4952) secure to the owner of the copyright the right, after a sale of the book to a purchaser, to restrict future sales of the book at retail, to the right to sell it at a certain price per copy, because of a notice in the book that a sale at a different price will be treated as an infringement, which notice has been brought home to one undertaking to sell for less than the named sum? We do not think the statute can be given such a construction, and it is to be remembered that this is purely a question of statutory construction. There is no claim in this case of contract limitation, nor license agreement controlling the subsequent sales of the book. In our view the copyright statutes, while protecting the owner of the copyright in his right to multiply and sell his production, do not create the right to impose, by notice, such as is disclosed in this case, a limitation at which the book shall be sold at retail by future purchasers, with whom there is no privity of contract. Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus, 210 U.S. 339, 350 (U.S. 1908). So at least they'd have to shrink-wrap it --- Pam Pamela S. Chestek Chestek Legal PO Box 2492 Raleigh, NC 27602 919-800-8033 pam...@chesteklegal.com www.chesteklegal.com Board Certified by the NC State Bar's Board of Legal Specialization in Trademark Law _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss