Hi, and thanks for the question.
Here is a good general overview of price fixing and its components :
"--The general rule provides that a vendor may not in combination with
another vendor agree to set a certain price thereby creating a fixed
price within a certain market.
A business acting on its own and not in concert with another may use
legitimate efforts to obtain the best price they can, including their
ability to raise prices to the detriment of the general public. Also,
conformity of prices within a given product is not illegal unless such
conformity was created by a combination of vendors agreeing on a set
price.
For example, where competitors agree to sell their goods or services
at a specified price, minimum price or maximum price and they receive
profits from such an agreement, they are in violation of price fixing.
Additionally, setting a price to be charged only within a certain area
in order to get rid of competition or to create a monopoly is
generally illegal under most state laws.
A majority of states have also enacted a "Below-Sales-Cost" law
wherein businesses may not sell goods below cost if they do so with
anti-competitive intent or effect.--
from : WHAT IS PRICE FIXING?
[http://business-law.freeadvice.com/trade_regulation/price_fixing.htm]
As you might guess, most of the current laws are concerned with the
other side of the coin; those that want to fix a price at a high
level. However, as the above reference lists, there are laws dealing
with "Below-Sales-Cost". So both sides are basically covered.
To address your question directly --"If I was selling people the
resell rights to an information product ... can I specify that people
must sell it for a minimum price or that it cannot be given away?" --
The answer is "NO" that is price fixing, in fact it's a really good
definition for Price Fixing.
The main draw back is in the "If I was selling people the resell
rights" .. that's where you loose control right there. You are selling
resell rights, so the buyer can do anything he wants to with it, by
law.
There might be a temptation to look at that last paragraph in the
reference above and say "Ah Ha! Got em", except you "sold" the resell
rights, you didn't "offer" the resell rights and receive a percentage
of what they sell for. So you are already paid, therefore no "harm"
can befall you.
It is conceivable that you may be able to "set the price" if your
agreement states that you get a percentage of the sales. I've been in
situations like this and they get ugly fast, so I wouldn't recommend
that course of action.
Now, at this point I'm going to remind you that I'm not a lawyer, and
you should talk with one rather earnestly and follow his advice,
especially in any place where my advice and his might conflict, ...
but... I'm going to tell a brief story here and perhaps it could be of
some use to you.
I had a client with a similar problem, items being sold on the web,
didn't want his product to loose value, didn't want to get into
percentages and the rest of it, and he found a solution with his
vendors which solved the problem (as far as I know). He's still in
business after three years and still doing the same thing, so there's
probably some credence to the idea. Or at least, none of his vendor's
have been able to find a way around it yet.
Fixing the price or making a vendor sell at a price is illegal, no
getting around that, be what he did was to have an agreement with his
vendors, that on the Internet, they could only "advertise" the
suggested retail price. If they actually sold the item for less, on a
case to case bases, nothing could be done about that, but on their web
pages they had to "advertise" the retail price only. No sales offers,
no 2 for 1's.
I wrote a program that checks this for him on a regular bases, that's
how I found out about it, and I read the agreement (he was rather
proud of it). So, that might be an idea for you to pursue.
Call your Lawyer, call your lawyer... call your lawyer... I'm not a
lawyer and Google is not a Legal Resource. I'm just a Researcher with
a history. This type of thing, if not done "VERY" right can get you in
a lot of trouble.
Other Links of interest :
FEDLAW-- Antitrust
[http://www.legal.gsa.gov/legal5a.htm]
Lawsuits against Vitamin Companies for Price Fixing
[http://www.heall.com/medicalfreedom/
lawsuitsagainstvitamincompanies.html ]
I wish you luck on your journey
webadept-ga |
Clarification of Answer by
webadept-ga
on
28 May 2002 09:46 PDT
Could you please clarify that a bit further. It sounds like you are
asking a completely different question, since licensing intellectual
property has little/nothing to do with reselling and price/value. Just
let me know in what context you are looking for it in, .. licensing
intellectual property as it pertains to .. what? Employees, Contract
Work, Patents, Copyright?
If you are selling a product, no matter what that product is; it could
even be an idea, with no physical form at all... If you sell it, or
sell someone a license to resell it, then you no longer have control
over what that person or company does with it.
There are copyright laws that give authors the ability to sell rights
on different levels, such as being able to sell First Printing North
American rights to a magazine for an aritical I write. This allows the
magazine to publish the artical once, and only in editions of the
magazine that will be sold in North America. It does not give me the
protection of them giving the magazine away for free, selling it 5
years from now, or making sure none of the issues leave the country.
These laws have no protection of selling to a reseller. If I give my
magazine artical to a reseller and he pays me $50.00 for it with the
understanding that he can resell, then I have no control over where it
gets published, how often or for how much. That's completely out of my
control.
Thanks, I'll keep and eye out today for you clarification.
webadept-ga
|
