Category First Sale / Exhaustion
What Does Ownership Mean in the Digital Age?
When you hit a “buy” button on Amazon, iTunes, or another digital content retail service, do you actually own what you’ve paid money for? If you look at most retailers’ terms of service, the answer is no: you are licensing it on some terms that the retailer sets, which usually don’t amount to ownership. In […]
Dutch Public Libraries and the “One Copy, One User” Rule
I took a little bit of heat from certain members of the library community who were bothered by my analysis last week of the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ’s) decision in the case of Vereniging Openbare Bibliotheken (Dutch Public Library Association) v. Stichting Leenrecht (Lending Rights Foundation, the Dutch collecting society for royalties from library lending) […]
The ECJ’s Inconclusive Ruling on Library E-Book Lending
We’ve been looking for a while at the question of whether First Sale rights apply to digital files. If you get an e-book or music download, can you resell, lend, or give it away to someone else — as you can with physical products like print books or music CDs? The library community has gotten excited […]
PTO Weighs In on Digital First Sale
A little-known fact about the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is that it advises the executive branch of government (the president and his administration) on copyright issues — just as the US Copyright Office advises Congress on copyright. Although the Copyright Office’s efforts over the past couple of years to overhaul the country’s copyright […]
Public Knowledge Weighs In on Digital First Sale
Sherwin Siy looks at the history of first sale case law to find evidence that first sale should be extrapolated to the digital age.
Capitol Records Prevails in ReDigi Case
A federal district judge comes down hard on the digital music resale startup.
Supreme Court Affirms First Sale in Kirtsaeng Case
The Supreme Court established that first sale rights apply to media products manufactured outside the US when brought into the country. What does this decision portend for digital first sale?
Awareness Grows over Digital First Sale
Media industry people are beginning to realize just how disruptive resale of digital content can be.
Library E-Lending with DRM-Free E-Books?
The coming showdown over Digital First Sale and library e-book lending.
The Harry Potter Watermarking Experiment
Pottermore’s watermarking scheme for EPUB e-books offers the worst of both worlds: it’s ineffective and costs money to implement.
Copyright and Technology 
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