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Comment by _justinfunk | Hacker News Reader

My initial response was that Disney should have won this. It seems to me that Disney gets to control the distribution of it's copyrighted materials. They bundle a physical and digital version of the movie. So, 1 purchase = 1 "household" can watch the media privately.

What Redbox is doing is constituting 1 purchase = 2 households can watch the media privately (the renter of the DVD and the purchaser of the code).

I'm not an expert on the First Sale Doctrine, but it seems like the end result is that Disney would sell fewer copies of it's content (i.e. damages) in respect to RedBox's actions.

(not a lawyer)

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When you purchase something you have the right to resell it. You aren't purchasing a license, you are purchasing an item, in this case two items: a DVD and a Digital Copy. So just like if I buy a living room set I can now sell the couch and the chair separately.

Disney wants to treat the sticker as a legal license. I too, am not a lawyer, but I think they are on shaky ground.

I'm also not a lawyer. But, isn't digital ownership more complex than that (if they were to have a better contract)? I don't think you can re-sell your iTunes library or transfer it to a friend.

Though, I'll agree that you should be able to transfer digital goods. Audible supports this for example.

I think the key point here is that Redbox did not buy a digital license from Disney. They bought a box with a DVD and a piece of paper with a code that can be redeemed for a digital license. They rent out the DVD and sell the piece of paper. Both of these are allowed under the first sale doctrine. Disney tried to tack on additional conditions to using the code on the piece of paper which the judge called "improper leveraging of Disney’s copyright in the digital content to restrict secondary transfers of physical copies".

That's a good point. When I was reading about this, I didn't put too much stock in the fact that the code was on a piece of paper in the box. But, it seems that this is a very narrow ruling based on that fact.

Once someone redeems the code, they presumably have to have a Disney account and agree to some kind of terms of service.

And these Disney's digital copy's redemption "terms of service" is the subject of judge's ruling. Because those terms force consumers to acknowledge, that they own the physical copy, which means that these terms put restrictions on the resale of physical copy (i.e. basically forbids reselling), and it's not ok for the judge.

I get that this ruling is focused on the piece of paper before it's redeemed and it's really good that a sticker isn't enough to limit your ability to resell something.

I'm wondering about after someone has redeemed the code. Once someone redeems the code, they presumably have to sign up for an account and agree to a long terms of service, which is (to my understanding) more accepted as a contract. It seems like this ruling doesn't significantly advance the issue of digital ownership.

The entire ruling is very well worth a read. I'm not a lawyer, but these orders tend to read very much like code -- incredibly logical, with source-syntax (case references) when referencing prior cases (both binding & persuasive).

I'd guess this case settles though, far too much for Disney to lose and not enough for them to gain; I'd expect that they'll beef up their labeling.

Unfortunately, the judge (and really, the existing case law) gives them basically a recipe to do what they want to: full license terms on the box top (via the referenced Lexmark case).

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