I have always used "gray market" to reflect trans-shipping of legitimate products sold in a geographic area beyond it's original wholesale location or intended sale location. Any other use devalues the true nature of the source of the product. I would keep that definition different from "used" sales in that no one is actually duping or photocopying large numbers of textbooks for re-sale (or shouldn't be). This is unlike black market video product which is often original copyrighted material that is illegally duped and re-sold as original. I do often find it interesting that often those who profit from copyrighted material (authors of textbooks) are willing to ignore those rights from others by supporting the purchase of illegal copies. It seems that one's desire for a commercial product obviates the copyrights holder's rights to market or NOT market that product. This often arises in music recordings where the term "bootleg" has been used not only for illegal copies of legitimate records as well as illegal copies of material never intended for commercial release. Some "tapers" actually have begun to use the term ROIO (recording of indeterminate origin) to make a distinction (adds a moral level between ROIOs and bootlegs). -----Original Message----- From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 1:18 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Reply: video search >I understand 'grey market' to mean the retail sale of an object >which is legal but against the wishes of the manufacturer. For >example, if I had bought 200 'Star Wars' videos before they were >withdrawn in 1998, from a wholesaler and paying good money for them, >I would be committing no crime if I were to sell them in a shop now, >despite the fact that Lucas would not want me to. Maybe this is starting to move off topic but: "Grey market" might have a shifting meaning but this example would not qualify. Not only is such reselling completely legal (nothing grey about it) as the post pointed out but it would mean that huge numbers of used book, record and video stores/dealers would be grey market which clearly would make the term meaningless. Something that many of you will be familiar with is that textbook publishers go to great lengths to prevent textbooks from being resold but that doesn't mean that most American universities are operating grey market bookstores because they are reselling (legally) textbooks. ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite