billso.com

Sunday, 1 June 2008, was the 100th anniversary of the first sale doctrine in the US.

As I’ve mentioned before in this billso.com article on 24 March 2008, the first sale doctrine allows someone who buys a book to resell it or pass it along as they see fit.

This important principle of US copyright law applies to other media, too. Last month, a Federal court upheld the rights of eBay sellers to vend software, according to this Ars Technia article. First sale allows people to resell or give away CDs, DVDs and other works that they purchased.

Creative Commons licenses allow users to share and adapt applicable works, which is an excellent extension of the first sale doctrine.

See this article in Everybody’s Libraries for more details

Related pages on billso.com

• Copyright and fair use
• Creative Commons

A few weeks ago, my face-to-face IS 7010 students talked about the high-definition DVD format war. Apple, Sony, Disney and Fox supported Blu-ray. Warner’s defection from the HD DVD camp last month was an indication that Blu-ray was winning the battle, according to this New York Times article.

The rival HD DVD format was supported by Universal, Paramount, Toshiba, Microsoft and Intel, according to this Wikipedia article.

Of course, Blu-ray discs won’t play in a standard HD DVD player, and vice versa. Engadget has a chart that compares the two formats here.

This format war is reminiscent of the Beta vs VHS video tape battle in the 1970s and 1980s.

It seems that this format war is over, and Blu-ray has won. Wal-Mart had been pushing HD DVD in its stores, but the company announced yesterday that they will no longer sell HD DVD movies, according to the New York Times. The shift was announced on Wal-Mart’s corporate blog in this article. Engadget has sounded the death knell, partly because Wal-Mart sells 20% of the DVD in the USA.

Toshiba made one desperate last attempt to promote their HD DVD technology with an expensive commercial during the Super Bowl earlier this month. However, Netflix and Blockbuster had previously announced they would support Blu-ray. Now Toshiba is suspending their HD DVD marketing.

Computer manufacturers have long wanted a single standard high-def DVD format. Software publishers don’t really need high-def DVDs and the moment, and game publishers have to go along with whatever format is used in the game consoles.

China produces about 80% of all DVD chipsets right now. They’re not making much profit though: perhaps $1 a unit! Commoditization is taking hold again in consumer electronics. PCs, audio players and other devices will be next.

Tech: CNN.com - Trial examines role of dashboard electronics - Jul 27, 2004: Who needs a DVD player, Playstation 2 and screen in the front seat of their SUV? Erwin J. Petterson Jr., did, and he may have been watching a DVD movie while driving his Grand Cherokee from Kenai to Anchorage on October 12, 2002. “In what may be the first trial of its kind in the nation, prosecutors have accused the pickup truck’s driver of second-degree murder for watching a movie instead of the road when he crashed head-on into the Jeep.”

Tech: Yahoo! News - Fair Use Bill Gains Ground: “Opponents of the DMCA’s anticircumvention provisions, including Barton and Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act sponsor Representative Rich Boucher (D-Virginia), argue the DMCA goes too far in making it illegal for consumers to break copy protections in an attempt to exercise their legal fair use rights, such as making backup copies of DVDs or excerpting a DVD or CD in a school report. ‘I think there is a growing consensus the DMCA went too far,’ Petricone says. ‘We are quite confident [Boucher’s bill] will pass. It may be now, it may be later.’”