Can a digital music file, lawfully made and purchased, be resold by its owner under the first sale doctrine?
In a decision this past weekend, a U.S. District Court answers: no. More on the decision, and a link to the court’s opinion, at Wired.
Also: Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided that the online streaming of over-the-air television broadcasts by the startup, Aereo, is permitted. More on the decision, which is bound to be appealed, at ArsTechnica.
At FastCompany: “Box’s 65-Year-Old Android Engineer Gives Your Startup Some Unsentimental Advice”
At The Walrus: “BlackBerry’s Boom: How the Canadian Smartphone Became a Nigerian Status Symbol” by Brianna Goldberg. Apparently, there is even a popular Nollywood film series ‘BlackBerry Babes’. According to Goldberg: “While North American business stories have been reporting on RIM’s spectacular decline, Africa has fallen hard for the Waterloo, Ontario, tech giant. RIM, now known simply as BlackBerry, is Africa’s number one smart phone vendor, and it is now the preferred brand in both South Africa and Nigeria, two cultural leaders for the continent. Second only to Asia’s mobile market, Africans already use 735 million cellphones.” Interesting read, but don’t be fooled: “BlackBerry 10 predicted to hold less than 5% market share through 2016”
Wired explains yesterday’s Supreme Court decision clarifying that the “first sale” doctrine of federal copyright law applies to foreign-purchase works imported into the United States: “Supreme Court Boosts Right to Resell Copyrighted Goods.” The Supreme Court’s opinion (pdf)