Small Business selling second hand products - Advice

[Dan_p]

Hi,

We run a small bussiness selling football collectables. The Sporting body contacted us yesterday about removing our second hand dvd's and videos we had in stock as it was a copyright breach. He also told us he was sending our website link around to other departments of the nrl to check that we are able to sell products.

We have removed the dvds page. We have been buying the cards from the distributor for a few years now so they shouldnt be a problem. I am wondering what the rules are about magzines whether you are allowed by the book to sell these.

I feel a little hard done by as you go to any second hand book store and you will see a shelf of second hand videos and dvds for sale. I am sure these dont have a special licence.

Just thought I would throw it out there, this forum has a broad range knowledge base. Has anyone had a similar problem before?

I did try and call the two major magazine companies but it was close to business hours closing.

The sporting body did also ask if we would like to stock their official range of dvds.

It is a bit scary if they try and shut us down.

We had a problem with them a few years ago because we had official logos in our website. We found them very hard to deal as they never returned our calls and we were threatened with legal action. There would be no way to fight them as we couldn't maintain court costs.

 

[Macca]

I would start by contacting the local police and ask them if a license to sell second hand goods is required.

Rules will probably vary from state to state (as usual ) so you may have to check in each state with a government body to see if you need to be registered to sell second hand stuff over the net.

The rules also change every now and then so my experience in this won't help as it is 10+ years since I took trade ins.

 

[marg4000]

Contact the Dept of Fair Trading in your state who may be able to help.
Marg

 

[Aaron Sice]

if you have a license to sell second hand goods, that would include any and all second hand goods not covered by firearms, drugs and alcohol etc.

therefore, i dont see how you can be in breach of copyright, because essentially one person who bought the original copyright has sold that singular copyright you to, and then you are onselling said copyright to someone else. no duplicate has been made, therefore nothing has been infringed upon....?

its no different to me drawing up someones plans, them paying me to do so, and then onselling those plans with the block. essentially, they own the copyright to [those plans on that block] therefore they have the right to omsell that copyright without being in breach of IP.

you should have a read of the copyright act, incl the later amendments. i dont think you are in breach because you are not

a) counterfeiting anything
b) selling second hand goods without a license and
c) reselling new copyrights without license to do so.

 

[Dan_p]

you should have a read of the copyright act, incl the later amendments. i dont think you are in breach because you are not

a) counterfeiting anything
b) selling second hand goods without a license and
c) reselling new copyrights without license to do so.

Thanks, will do this tomorrow. I think the big compnaies just like to intimidate the little people like us. Might call fair trading as well as somebody else mentioned.

Its a bit scary seeming this is just a sideline and the amount of trouble you could get into.

 

[Dan_p]

Only had time to talk to fair trading, they said I am allowed to have dvds and videos, they come under the second hand trading.

The problem I think will be the sporting body owns the footage and you can only purchase from someone who has an agreement to re-sell the dvds and videos new from whoever owns the data. If this is the case every second hand book shop is in breach of copyright. It seems to me it is only until you are noticed or start to move into a larger persons profit that something is done.

 

[Aaron_C]

Once you start making a profit out of it that is when the Copyright laws kick in. If it's just a hobby you do on ebay then there's no profit motive so the Act doesn't come down on you.

 

[Aaron Sice]

Once you start making a profit out of it that is when the Copyright laws kick in. If it's just a hobby you do on ebay then there's no profit motive so the Act doesn't come down on you.

you might want to check that. if the product was sold to another and then on sold again, the copyright hasnt been "diluted".

anything and everything is for sale, including copyrights.

 

[Aaron_C]

you might want to check that. if the product was sold to another and then on sold again, the copyright hasnt been "diluted".

anything and everything is for sale, including copyrights.

Yes but what I mean is no one is going to bother you over a copyright infringement if there is no profit motive out of it. Once it becomes a business, then different story.

 

[Dan_p]

Yes but what I mean is no one is going to bother you over a copyright infringement if there is no profit motive out of it. Once it becomes a business, then different story.

I know what you mean and the same thing happened to us before. I published a book about the subject and apparently the same idea was in the pipeline for the company that makes the cards. Found this out later on. My book was going to take away market share from the other company that is when we found out the sporting body was going to take legal action against us for having official logos. We got rid of the logos to make the body happy but kept selling the book. All ok after that, but it was scary at the time.

It seems to be when you get noticed or get in the way of someone bigger that these laws come into practice.

I was worried about if my personal assets could be in jeopardy if I was to be sued.

Fair trading did say that dvds and videos are a lot stricter with copyright. Items such as the old programs are not so much.

 

[Terryw]

A logo would be trademarked usually and you would not be able to publish this without the trade marker's permssion.

Copyright is different. There is no registration system - it just automatically acrues to the artist who made the item. With DVDs there would be multiple issues - writer of the song or script may have copy right over that, the voice over person copyright over the sound, the film footage may have multiple copyrights - to each person who took the film etc. All these rights are probably assigned to the producer of the DVD. The design over the cover may also be copyright and there may be trademarked logos on the cover as well.

So there are muliple intellectual property issues. There is also probably distribution rights. Book sellers often do this. they may give someone a right to sell their books exclusively.

However, I don't know how this plays out with selling second hand items. It may be a breach of the distribution rights.

(eg. in Australia there are laws about importing foreign published books and selling them here.)

 

[Dan_p]

A logo would be trademarked usually and you would not be able to publish this without the trade marker's permssion.

Copyright is different. There is no registration system - it just automatically acrues to the artist who made the item. With DVDs there would be multiple issues - writer of the song or script may have copy right over that, the voice over person copyright over the sound, the film footage may have multiple copyrights - to each person who took the film etc. All these rights are probably assigned to the producer of the DVD. The design over the cover may also be copyright and there may be trademarked logos on the cover as well.

So there are muliple intellectual property issues. There is also probably distribution rights. Book sellers often do this. they may give someone a right to sell their books exclusively.

However, I don't know how this plays out with selling second hand items. It may be a breach of the distribution rights.

(eg. in Australia there are laws about importing foreign published books and selling them here.)

I think they were more concerned over the distribution rights. If you cant buy them new anymore then how are people supposed to buy them?

 

[wish-ga]

You sound like you need a lawyer that specialises in copyrights.

You have a few ventures that need clarification (selling, writing/pub books)

Worth the money to sleep well.

All the best for your business ventures.

 

[Dan_p]

You sound like you need a lawyer that specialises in copyrights.

You have a few ventures that need clarification (selling, writing/pub books)

Worth the money to sleep well.

All the best for your business ventures.

the book is a few years old, nearly sold out! Massive 1,000 print run.

It is more a sideline than a real business but you learn so much from running a business.