Major book publishers sue Amazon’s Audible over new speech-to-text feature

Re:Major book publishers sue Amazon’s Audible over new speec... by cortesoft on Monday August 26, 2019 @02:49PM (#20802542)

Except that the courts have said many times that a seller doesn't have carte blanche to add whatever restrictions they want to a purchase. The First Sale doctrine, for example, means you can't stop someone from reselling their purchased book. It is tricky for digital items, but depending on the exact details, the First Sale doctrine can sometimes apply.

Being able to take the legally purchased text and running it through a computerized reader might end up being legal... we need the courts to decide. It isn't enough that the person selling it doesn't want to allow it.

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Re:Major book publishers sue Amazon’s Audible over new speec... by gamblor956 on Monday August 26, 2019 @03:33PM (#20802922)

First Sale Doctrine applies to specific copies of creative works (i.e., a book or DVD).

It doesn't apply to licenses for creative works. When you buy an ebook, you are buying a license to create copies of the creative work as necessary to make use of the license purchased (i.e., a copy in your phone or on your kindle).

FSD doesn't let you sell either of those transient copies, and it doesn't apply to the license itself because the license isn't a copy within the meaning of the statute underlying the FSD. In the rare occasion where the license and the copy are one and the same for a digital good, the FSD would apply.

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Re:Major book publishers sue Amazon’s Audible over new speec... by verall on Monday August 26, 2019 @06:50PM (#20804523)

This is not a great distinction because there are government imposed limits to the vendor imposed limitations, even if it is a "license". FSD will hold up with physical DVDs in American court, even if the vendor says they only sold you a non-resellable license to view the DVD. Court isn't going to care the vendor called it a license. The distinction is the jurisprudence regarding the medium, with a dash of vendor license agreement. Also how you purchased it and what a consumer would "reasonable expect" will probably come into play: if you buy 1M old DVD with license to not resell that you and vendor have physically signed, your FSD is less likely to hold up than if you bought one DVD at Walmart with an EULA.

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Re:Major book publishers sue Amazon’s Audible over new speec... by gamblor956 on Monday August 26, 2019 @07:04PM (#20804603)

FSD will hold up with physical DVDs in American court, even if the vendor says they only sold you a non-resellable license to view the DVD.

Right, because that's literally how the FSD was written. The sale of a DVD of "X" necessarily includes a license to view "X". The license is subordinate to the DVD (beause it is necessary for use of the purchased good), and because the FSD applies to the DVD, it also necessarily applies to the subordinate license.

if you buy 1M old DVD with license to not resell that you and vendor have physically signed, your FSD is less likely to hold up than if you bought one DVD at Walmart with an EULA.

No, the FSD still applies. You've just described Redbox, which actually fought and won this battle (about reselling used DVDs). It would be different if you bought a DVD that included a license for an online streaming version of the movie that couldn't be resold. Redbox fought and lost this battle against Disney. In a nutshell: Redbox can do whatever it wants with the physical copy of the movie, but the FSD doesn't apply to the streaming license that was bundled with the DVD and so they couldn't sell those separately from the DVDs themselves.

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Re:Major book publishers sue Amazon’s Audible over new speec... by verall on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @11:57PM (#20816660)

Yes, and I appreciate you refererencing the specific cases, because my main point, is that that is what matters. It is the jurisprudence that defines what limitations are allowed. Vendors will constantly claim "licenses" and "limitations" that are not supported by jurisprudence and would not likely hold up in court.

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Re:Major book publishers sue Amazon’s Audible over new speec... by cortesoft on Monday August 26, 2019 @04:09PM (#20803235)

My point was just that it isn't as simple to say "the seller put this restriction on the transaction, take it or leave it"

There are limits to what they can restrict.

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Re:Major book publishers sue Amazon’s Audible over new speec... by gamblor956 on Monday August 26, 2019 @06:55PM (#20804545)

There are limits to what they can restrict.

Yes, the limitations can't violate criminal or contract law (or other laws in general), and can't completely prevent the licensee from making use of the licensing rights they paid for. Otherwise, any restrictions are fair game.

If the putative licensee doesn't want to accept the restrictions in the license, their remedy is to not enter into a licensing agreement in the first place; they have no right to simply ignore the license restrictions.

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