9th Circuit Guts "First Sale" Rights
@CoryOndrejka's retrospective from 2010 captures the critical transition from initial concept to the first dollar of customer revenue.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Early traction rarely comes from passive launches; it requires direct manual outreach, personal network activation, and high-touch customer support.
Narrowing down the target audience to a specific niche allows solo founders to out-position generic horizontal competitors.
Underpricing out of fear of rejection is common; founders who set premium pricing often discover higher customer satisfaction and lower churn.
Community Debate Themes:
Discussions analyzed Show HN launch mechanics, cold DM outreach conversion rates, and the psychology of validating customer demand before writing code.
CATEGORY Zero to One →
HISTORICAL ERA Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 69 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 26 comments
I don't think they are gutting anything. They are simply trying to work around the Supreme Court's botched decision in Quality King.
Until I read Quality King, I had no idea that the section 6xx limitations on importing had any connection to the section 1xx exceptions to 17 USC 106. And I doubt that Congress had any idea there was a connection, either.
The 9th Circuit is trying to find a way to read section 109 so as to undo Quality King and get back to what Congress intended--unauthorized importation of copyrighted works, other than for personal use, is prohibited.
I bet corporation are going to do what Google has done for them on Youtube - get a cut of every activity.
So you'll be allowed to sell your Rolex on ebay, as long as the Rolex company get a percentage of the sale.
There are some really crazy rulings coming out of the courts lately.
Hey, I have an idea! Let's completely destroy well established foundations of commerce in favor of convoluted, complex and rather insane 'IP' laws. The BEST would be if you had to pay large corporations a tax on every single commerce related action you could conceivably undertake.
Why are they not suing for breach of contract, which (should / would) contain specifications on selling products regarding the market they would be in
The 9th circuit does have a pretty terrible batting average, so I'm confident that this will be overturned.