The Threat to Book and Rummage Sales

The first sale doctrine, which gives owners the right to resell anything they bought, is the reason the Friends of the Fairmount Public Library (FFPL) can have book sales, at least of books that have been printed in the past twenty years, as mass printing was offshored in the name of profit. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of a lower-court ruling, that anything manufactured overseas is not subject to the first-sale principle, the ruling would kill the secondary marketplace — rummage sales, flea markets, consignment stores, book sales like the FFPL's, and auctions on-site and on-line. It would be the end of the FFPL, because it has no other means of support except book sales.

Although unmentioned, a favorable ruling would also be the start of a pollution nightmare: When consumers realize they cannot sell most of their stuff because it was made, in whole or in part, overseas, they will just throw that stuff away. Some of the discarded stuff may be recycled (although even recycling may not survive a favorable ruling), most will just accumulate in landfills, junkyards, and along the sides of roads and creeks.

It is amazing what a myopic ruling in favor of corporate America would not only cause serious disruption in American life, but would not give corporate America its hoped-for revenue.