I totally can't wrap my head around this and it seems either really suspicious or like she's explaining it completely wrong. First, I don't know a court could ever differentiate between a product manufactured abroad and one domestically produced for something like this. At best, I think you could probably differentiate between products offered in the domestic market and those which are not, and thus must have been privately imported, but even then it doesn't really make sense because what's the fucking difference? It's not like foreign producers are a conglomerate or operate in collusion nor is it a case where you can argue that their products don't fall under the same protections, rules, and regulations just because they're produced abroad. That's a fundamental rule of international trade policy - you control the regulations for your market - hence the existence of court-ordered trade injunctions. Apple can petition a court to hold up imports of HTC products because the products were found to violate an American Apple patent (see HTC One X, One S). HTC doesn't have ground to stand on because if they want to sell products in the market, they have to abide by the rules. Conversely, they're free to sell the products in any other market who's courts haven't come to the same conclusion. It makes no sense to me that First Sale wouldn't apply to foreign products when every other principle of regulation is the same across the board.
I mean, you might think that this could possibly benefit American domestic producers, but I don't really see how aside from the obvious "Dodge is going to blow up once the resale of all Japanese imports is zero!!!". Dodge also isn't going to be exporting shit once every other developed buyer's market in the world throws the same barriers up in retaliation. And what the fuck happens to used dealerships or the pre-owned sub-divisons of new dealerships selling trade-ins? It totally doesn't make any sense.
It's also probably in direct contravention of every FTA that America is involved in.
And they talk about components of products affecting first sale? What about fucking houses? Italian tile, Japanese steel, Canadian lumber (well, depending on the market), and all of a sudden you can't sell your house?
The article has to be off point on something here. From the looks of it, I'm guessing that this dude is getting sued because he bulk imported the books and sold them while someone else held the American distribution and/or publishing rights and that's why they're saying First Sale doesn't apply - none of it was for personal use (or however they legally define it). Maybe closing some loophole the guy used and the author of the article is just trying to be sensational about the whole thing or just doesn't understand the legalese.
