Fealty Payments? You May Have to Purchase Permission to Resell Your Own Items

Hey – you don’t OWN that IPod, that antique dresser or that vehicle! What are you thinking, trying to resell it? You only purchased the right to USE it! You have to get permission to sell it! Stop, thief!

If money is changing hands outside the system, the modern feudalist government is certain to want to put a stop to it.  What better way to halt trade that doesn’t benefit them than to regulate it or demand fealty taxes?

Very quietly, the United States Supreme Court has slipped into its docket a hearing on the piece of the pie owed to the original copyright or patent holders.  Absurdly, if the item you wish to resell was produced outside the United States, you may soon have to receive permission from the originator of the item before you can resell it.  And of course, with that permission will likely come an applicable fee or tax – sort of like a royalty payment.

In the case, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons,  the first-sale doctrine in copyright law is being questioned for validity. This doctrine allows a person to buy and then sell items, including electronics, books, artwork, furniture, CDs, and DVDs, with no requirement of permission from the copyright holder of those products.

If the first-sale doctrine is not upheld, this will have significant and preposterous repercussions for the average American.  You can forget Craigslist, eBay, thrift stores and yard sales – these types of sales will no longer be allowed without rolls and rolls of red tape – so much red tape that it will cease to be worthwhile to sell your used items.

In an economy that is struggling so desperately, the inability to purchase a used coat at a thrift store for your child, not being allowed to sell that second car sitting in your driveway, being banned from raising some money with a yard sale – well,this could be the difference between a poor child wearing winter boots or flip flops.

Like most of the recent draconian laws, the only people being hit by this are the serfs, as the big corporations with their fat bank accounts will receive fealty payments for everything the 99% has purchased (but actually only purchased the right to use).

This is not the first attack on the sale of used items.  In Canada, restrictions have been put in place for the sale AND donation of used goods. In a news release dated May 15, 2012, Health Canada (the federal department responsible for public health) cautions against buying or selling goods at garage sales.

The legal basis of this is a legislation passed last June.  “On June 20, 2011, the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act (CCPSA) came into force. Its purpose is to protect the public by addressing and preventing dangers to human health or safety that are posed by consumer products in Canada. There is no distinction under the CCPSA and its regulations between new and used products. Any person who sells, distributes, or gives away consumer products that do not comply with the Act or its current regulations is breaking the law in Canada.”

For eagle-eyed yard-sale attendees or hand-me-down beneficiaries, an easy-to-use tattle-tale form is available on the Health Canada website.  With unparalleled convenience, the online form is automatically submitted to instigate an investigation of the questionable item.

Beware, Craigslist criminals, ebay bandits, thrift store thieves and yard sale desperados – you are in the crosshairs.