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First sale doctrine

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A fundamental tenet of copyright law, and another limitation on the exclusive rights, is the first sale doctrine, which prevents an owner of copyright in a work from controlling subsequent transfers of copies of that work. Once the copyright owner transfers ownership of a particular copy (a material object) embodying a copyrighted work, the copyright owner's exclusive right to distribute copies of the work is "extinguished" with respect only to that particular copy. The common law roots of the first sale doctrine allowed the owner of a particular copy of a work to dispose of that copy. This judicial doctrine was grounded in the common law principle that restraints on the alienation of tangible property are to be avoided in the absence of clear congressional intent to abrogate this principl

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A fundamental tenet of copyright law, and another limitation on the exclusive rights, is the first sale doctrine, which prevents an owner of copyright in a work from controlling subsequent transfers of copies of that work. Once the copyright owner transfers ownership of a particular copy (a material object) embodying a copyrighted work, the copyright owner's exclusive right to distribute copies of the work is "extinguished" with respect only to that particular copy. The common law roots of the first sale doctrine allowed the owner of a particular copy of a work to dispose of that copy. This judicial doctrine was grounded in the common law principle that restraints on the alienation of tangible property are to be avoided in the absence of clear congressional intent to abrogate this principle. Section 109(a) of the Copyright Act provides: This limitation on the copyright owner's distribution right allows wholesalers who buy books to distribute those copies to retailers and retailers to sell them to consumers and consumers to give them to friends and friends to sell them in garage sales and so on — all without the permission of (or payment to) the copyright owner of the work. The first sale doctrine does not, however, authorize the owner of a copy to make another copy, and because “transferring” a work electronically entails making a new copy, the first sale doctrine arguably does not apply.