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Comment by chaddeshon | Hacker News Reader

It is great that students will be able to get cheap text books. But, are we not concerned that the court seems to be throwing out a law passed by Congress in an area where the Constitution grants them explicit power to act merely because they think the law is a bad idea?

Title 17 of the U. S. Code Section 602(a)(1) “Importation into the United States, without the authority of the owner of copyright under this title, of copies or phonorecords of a work that have been acquired outside the United States is an infringe- ment of the exclusive right to distribute copies or phonorecords under section 106, actionable under sec tion 501.”

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Having briefly skimmed the Opinion[1] (IANYAL), the heart of it was an exercise of close statutory interpretation to try and figure out exactly how s. 602 interacts with s. 109, with the majority concluding that as s. 602 refers explicitly to the s. 106 exclusive distribution right, it's subject to the same limitations as s. 106 is, including s. 109's First Sale limitation. (So s. 602 then just has the effect that the act importing an unauthorised copy into the US is an infringement of copyright). [Edit: My mistake - that finding was actually unanimous. The 3 dissents were only dissenting on the interpretation of "lawfully made under this title" in s. 109]

That's clearly not the only possible reading - 3 of the justices came to a different conclusion. But the idea that a court giving giving a reasonable interpretation of a mildly ambiguous statute is "throwing out a law... merely because they think the law is a bad idea", just because another interpretation is possible, is nonsense.

[1] http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-697_d1o2.pdf

Thanks for that explanation. I hadn't had time to read the whole opinion. Perhaps my statement came off too harsh. I am nothing close to a lawyer, but I found the "parade of horribles" to be a little troubling. Shouldn't the Congress be the one evaluating the consequences on the law? I guess the counterargument is that those things are so horrible that we can assume that isn't what Congress meant.

When reading Supreme Court opinions, I am often blown away by the well reasoned, logical arguments, that support findings I disagree with. You can disagree, but you can't say they don't have some facts and logic to stand on.

If you've never read an actual Supreme Court opinion, I would highly encourage you to do do. The linked article here is just awful. It doesn't even provide the case name. The opinions are surprising easy to read, and flow pretty well. The language isn't difficult, and they can be surprising humorous. If you can make it through a C++ book, then you'll have no problem understanding the basics.

What always strikes me when reading Court opinions is, first, that there are well reasoned, logical arguments that support both sides; and second, that in almost every case where I've seen a marked difference in the quality of the arguments (this case is not one of them, btw--both sides' arguments seem to me to be well reasoned and logical, it basically comes down to a judgment call about interpretation and what Congress intended), the argument I've found to be stronger has been the dissenting one. In other words, it seems to me that, when push comes to shove, the Justices aren't as good at arguing for what the Court actually did, as they are at arguing for why the Court should have done something else.

I've noticed that as well. I think it is because whoever is writing the majority opinion has to temper the opinion to make it agreeable to a majority of the justices. Authors of minority opinions have no such restriction and can swing with full force.

That's a good point; in fact, it's even stronger in a way, because the majority opinion is the "official" one that becomes effectively law, so it not only has to be agreeable to a majority of the justices, it has to be agreeable enough to become part of the law of the land indefinitely.

That's the whole point of the Supreme Court and of the balance of powers. Congress is free to pass whatever law they want, it's up to the Court to decide if the law is valid or Constitutional. If the Court thinks the law is a bad idea, they're free by all means to throw it out, that's the reason they exist.

"It's a bad idea" is a very different thing than "it's unconstitutional." It shouldn't even need to be said, but this is a mistake that is pervasive on HN.[1] There are infinite shitty ideas that are nonetheless Constitutional.

The Court is empowered to throw out unconstitutional legislation. It is not empowered to throw out Constitutional legislation that happens to be a bad idea.

[1] On everything from campaign finance to drone strikes, nobody bothers drawing the very important distinction between "bad idea" and "unconstitutional."

The mass media doesn't often doesn't even try distinguish between the two. For hot button issues that make it to the Supreme Court, there is always a lot of talk about "I think people should be allowed to X" not "the law says Y" or "The Constitution allows Z".

If we want to be in control of our own governance, we would be better served if elected Congressmen make the laws rather than nine old people who are accountable to no one (even if those nine old people are brilliant thinkers).

It is, however, empowered to figure out how to interpret ambiguous legislation. And when more than one interpretation is possible, I don't really think it is such a bad idea to choose the more sensible option. I don't believe they've "throw[n] out" any part of the law here. Rather, they have chosen the interpretation they found more reasonable and consistent with the Constitutional prerogative of promoting the progress of science and useful arts.

In this specific case I don't disagree, I think they made a good and reasonable call, interpreting an ambiguous statute consistently with its other copyright jurisprudence.

More generally, I'm quite wary of situations in which the Court second-guesses Congress. Every time the Court does so, it uses up some of the Court's political capital, which is ultimately the only thing the Court has to enforce its judgments. Even though I'm a liberal, I tend to be very skeptical of judicial activism because I think that political capital should be saved for when it is really necessary.

That much, I can agree with. The devil, of course, is always in the details.

Congress should not pass laws it believes are unconstitutional, and the President should not sign laws he believes are unconstitutional. They are abandoning their duties by leaving the question up to the Supremes.

(According to insiders from the administration, Bush thought the campaign finance law he signed was unconstitutional, but he punted the unpopular job to the Supremes.)

They are 'throwing out' the law because it violates the first-sale doctrine, which has substantial legal force. The court simply has differently (and explicitly so) interpreted "under this title." Pay attention to the reference to 106 in particular.

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