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Comment by 1024core | Hacker News Reader

This is going to be interesting. They're not selling any copyrighted material; just the ability to download the material.

I don't understand one thing, though: why can't Disney make these codes single-use? Or limit them to a handful of uses? Or use some form of customer authentication (like a CC number, or phone number) to limit the access to these codes?

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> They're not selling any copyrighted material; just the ability to download the material.

They're selling codes that the DVD box said "aren't for sale". Whether that will hold up in court, I guess we'll see. I don't see why the owner of a thing gets to dictate what I do with the thing after I buy it from them. I bought the DVD with the code, it's mine to resell if I want, even if you didn't want me to when you sold it to me.

Obvious precedent: bulk food items, also usually marked "not for resale." I presume that that wording has no legal impact; I've definitely seen various convenience stores selling the "not for resale" food portions.

It has legal effect because it simply identifies that the individual items do not have the legally required labels for individual commercial sale of food items; that is, the “not for sale” label doesn't make them illegal to sell, the absence of legally required labeling does, the “not for sale” label just assured you can't complain that you weren't informed.

I've heard that's a CYA thing (for the food manufacturers), because a lot of the time the smaller objects won't have legally required nutrition facts on them. If someone resells it, the manufacturer can say "Well we told them not to!" instead of having to argue against a food reseller that they (the manufacturer) have an obligation to print nutrition information on the smaller objects because they (the reseller) assumed the food was eligible for reselling (the manufacturer would probably still win anyway but this cements their victory).

I've noticed that when this (selling "not for resale" items) is done as part of an import business, the importer will print and stick their own nutrition label onto the item. Which doesn't usually add that much more work, because often they're already re-labelling the item to add a translation of the item's name.

I've noticed that too. Imported stuff at City Shop in Shanghai has Chinese nutrition information stickered over the original English nutrition information.

I wish they would have put the sticker anywhere except covering the same information in English. City Shop is specifically targeted at foreigners. That sticker is mostly just preventing me from reading the nutrition info it is purportedly there to provide.

This struck a thought: how does the vending machine industry get around this requirement? I.e. sure they have the mandated labels on them, but as a consumer I can’t see them until after I purchase. Off to researching I go!

I always thought this had more to do with the fact that bulk items usually don't have nutrition information on them.

And they are priced differently.

The not having nutrition info on it could be a problem for the seller (since you need to have it) but I can’t imagine Costco having a leg to stand on suing the convienence store.

>bulk food items, also usually marked "not for resale."

If you're referring to items marked "Not labeled for individual sale", that means literally that the items do not have the legally required labels (e.g., nutritional information) for individual sale. All that a reseller would need to do would be to create and affix such labels.

The digital download is a license though. They can stipulate that the person with the code bought it with the DVD. Though practically I can’t see how they can enforce it.

They can deny service to the person if they didn't buy it with the DVD, but they can't sue the seller, no?

Yes they can deny service. It will be interesting if they stick it to the end consumer.

They can sue all they want, but I can’t see how they win. The seller here hasn’t broken a law or violated license terms which they would be bound to. I don’t know what’s on the box, but I’d have a hard time believing when I buy a DVD from Walmart that I have entered into an agreement with Disney.

When I go to use the code and download the movie, that’s when license terms and conditions and agreement between parties comes into play. But that should be between the holder of the code and Disney. Disney can say the holder must have come across the code by some way Disney likes but this to me is where enforcement gets tricky without implementing some kind of DVD verification or something.

Near the end of the article, it's mentioned that they ARE single use: RedBox isn't re-using them, just selling the code that they get out of each retail dvd that they buy, and then renting the physical DVD.

Aren't the codes that came with the DVDs that Netflix is then reselling one-time use? So Netflix doesn't ever use them, just sells them (i.e. the ability to download the material) to someone once. Netflix only has many to sell because they bought so many DVDs. At least that was my understanding, but maybe I'm wrong.

Edit: And by Netflix I mean Redbox, oops.

It's not Netflix (the provider of digital movies and TV shows with a subscription). It's Redbox (a company which specializes in renting movies out using automated kiosks on a per-night basis).

> Netflix (the provider of digital movies and TV shows with a subscription)

Netflix started 20 years ago by mailing rented movies to people, a business they still engage in with millions of customers. https://dvd.netflix.com

Sure, but it's still not Netflix in the article.

I don't see any legal difference between the content and access to the content because circumventing copy protection is still a copyright violation.

I am curious, however, whether this will be a copyright case or contract case.

There’s nothing being circumvented here. As another member pointed out you should check out how “first-sale” doctrine is used to decide these types of cases. Once Disney sells the DVD to Redbox they lose rights to dictate how further sales work.

My take is that Redbox is totally in the clear, and if Disney has a beef with somebody it’s with the consumer. Usually suing the consumer is bad for business.

It's a bit of an absurd position to take that it's legal to sell the codes but not legal to buy/use them.

It wouldn’t be illegal to buy them either. Disney can make a policy not to honor the codes, but it’s consumers they’re fighting against.

They are single use. But they're selling each code they get once.

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