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Selling Something? Go to Jail! That's copyright infringement... :-/

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Renegade:
So, it seems like the <insert expletives here /> <insert description of copyright industry here /> (I'm no longer capable of being civil about this) are going to make it illegal to sell your stuff...

http://www.naturalnews.com/036232_iPad_copyright_Supreme_Court.html

There is another copyright battle emerging over intellectual property, and this time you, John or Jane Q. Citizen, could be smack-dab in the middle of it, for one of the most innocuous acts you could imagine - selling your used iPad.

...

Designed here, but made overseas - that's the issue

According to reports, the Supreme Court case centers around the "first-sale doctrine" in copyright law. The doctrine simply means that you are allowed to buy and sell the things you purchase - even if your things have a copyright holder, you can still sell them because the copyright holder's control extends only to the "first-sale," a concept that the high court has observed for over a century.

Think of it like this. You buy a book by an author; the author owns the copyright so you can't legally make copies of the book without that author's permission. But, under the first-sale doctrine, you bought a copy of the book and sell your copy to someone else - a friend, co-worker or a willing buyer online.

In 1998, the first-sale doctrine was challenged by some copyright holders, but the Supreme Court held that it applied to all products made and sold in the U.S. The current case, however, stems from products manufactured abroad; in particular, it involved textbooks.

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Yeah... Another WTF moment... Way out of control.

zridling:
That's from the 1,700 lawyers entombed with Steve Jobs'. Hopefully, it only applies to Apple? Otherwise, the Swappa site for Android devices will get shut down pronto.

Buy and sell gently used Android devices with Swappa
http://swappa.com/

IainB:
It seems to me that the problem essentially lies within the concept of IP (Intellectual Property), which concept seems to have been picked up by Big Corporates and other rent-seekers, and  legally re-engineered into a set of weapons (e.g., copyright, patents, licencing, artificial barriers to entry) to create/maintain monopoly or oligopoly positions and guarantee resulting revenue-streams in perpetuity, in the form of a toll tax that we must all pay.
This sort of thing is happening where democratic and capitalist religio-political ideologies prevail, but it could (and has) happened in one form or another where socialist-communist and Fascist ideologies prevail.

This taxation effectively manifests as a seemingly hostile and extortionate act against consumers, and it has been legalised.
For a worst case example, you probably need do no more than look towards (say) Monsanto and GM corn and the injustices they have forced upon hapless farmers in, for example, the US, and India.

There is an ironic joke somewhere in here in the form of the term "Consumer Protection" - which is apparently a myth to pacify and make us feel comfortable whilst being held ever more still in the legal straightjackets fabricated by our lawmakers, so that the large and small parasitic leeches can continue to fasten and feed ever more voraciously on us consumers, who are at the bottom of the food chain.

This is classic corporate psychopathy in action, once again refined and sanctioned by statute/law. We are already turned into serfs.
The recipients of the IP taxes are usually in the form of fat, greedy, lazy, selfish, uncaring, unproductive corporate psychopaths. They stifle creativity by taking ownership of its product and then taxing us for it and prohibiting the creative production or use of anything similar, in perpetuity.
We should not complain, as they are merely performing very well and in the exact manner that we (society and lawmakers) set them up to do. The individual - the serf - has apparently embraced and condoned his own serfdom.

It is only a matter of time before these psychopathic corporations, in one form or another - e.g., maybe as a "benevolent" World Government - exact further tolls on citizens. Think a tax on carbon, on air, on potable water, on a patent on the human genome - i.e., on life itself. It has arguably already started.

We seem to intuitively or instinctively know that this is ethically/morally reprehensible, but at the same time we seem to be powerless against the Masters that we have made for ourselves. Serfdom = slavery.

What can you do about it? Well, you don't have to accept it. You could try being disobedient or rebellious against the status quo, but that could bankrupt you with fines, or land you in prison, or both. This is the remorseless force exerted on the slave.
However, there is still one place where - for the time being at least - we can allow ourselves to live in freedom, and that is in our minds.

Serendipitously, I came across this post today, that seems to put this kind of point across much better than I can.
Nina Paley Explains Intellectual Disobedience
Nina Paley Explains Intellectual Disobedience
from the people-are-going-to-create-and-share dept

Nina Paley (filmmaker, activist, occasional Techdirt contributor, and many other things) has given an interesting interview with O'Reilly's Mac Slocum, in which she talks about the concept of "intellectual disobedience" -- merging "intellectual property" with "civil disobedience." Nina argues that if you believe in creating and sharing culture these days, copyright infringement is almost necessary, and people shouldn't apologize for it, but should stand up for what they're doing:
"A lot of people infringe copyright and they're apologetic ... If you know as much about the law as, unfortunately, I do, I cannot claim ignorance and I cannot claim fair use ... I know that I'm infringing copyright and I don't apologize for it."

The phrase "intellectual disobedience" has a call-to-arms ring to it, but Paley characterized it as an introspective personal choice driven by a need to create. "It's important for me as an artist to make art, and the degree of self-censorship that is required by the law is too great," Paley said. "In order to have integrity as a human being and as an artist, I guess I'm going to be conscientiously violating the law because there's no way to comply with the law and remain a free human being."

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IainB:
Just to augment the points I made in the above post, here's an example of forceful protection of corporate taxation in action. In this case, it's the Ports Authority of New York (a public corporation, funded by taxation) using the Police (another public corporation, funded by taxation) to enforce and protect their revenue streams by punitively penalising the New York taxpayers who have taken advantage of apparently legitimate means to minimise the cost of their tax payment (the toll across the George Washington Bridge) to the Ports Authority.
Have you got that?
...This taxation effectively manifests as a seemingly hostile and extortionate act against consumers, and it has been legalised...
-IainB (June 20, 2012, 07:21 PM)
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So here we apparently have a prime example of superb and unashamed collaborative parasitism by two parasitic public service corporations.
I would have hoped that this sort of silliness could only happen in "America The Free", but I'm none too sanguine about that.   /sarc off
Police Ticketing Informal Rideshare Participants Based On No Law

This probably falls into the "Read and weep" category.

Renegade:
Police Ticketing Informal Rideshare Participants Based On No Law

This probably falls into the "Read and weep" category.
-IainB (June 20, 2012, 07:54 PM)
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<insert profanity here />

That's nothing short of extortion and thuggery. The Port Authority officers responsible for that should be arrested and charged with racketeering. Same for the police officers there.

It's amazing that so many people think things are still just fine... Yeah, fine as in you'll pay a fine... :(

<insert more profanity here />

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