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Peters, Marybeth --- "The Legal Perspective on Exhaustion in the Borderless Era: Consideration of a Digital First Sale Doctrine for Online Transmissions of Digital Works in the United States" [2010] ELECD 520; in Bently, Lionel; Suthersanen, Uma; Torremans, Paul (eds), "Global Copyright" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Global Copyright

Editor(s): Bently, Lionel; Suthersanen, Uma; Torremans, Paul

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848447660

Section: Chapter 25

Section Title: The Legal Perspective on Exhaustion in the Borderless Era: Consideration of a Digital First Sale Doctrine for Online Transmissions of Digital Works in the United States

Author(s): Peters, Marybeth

Number of pages: 8

Extract:

25. The legal perspective on exhaustion
in the borderless era: consideration
of a digital first sale doctrine for
online transmissions of digital
works in the United States
Marybeth Peters*

1 INTRODUCTION

In the era of the Statute of Anne, practical economic and geographic
barriers limited the scope of `the importation . . . or selling of any books
. . . printed beyond the seas . . .' as permitted under the statute.1 Today,
digital works are transmitted online in what is effectively a borderless era,
at least in comparison with the barriers that existed 300 years ago.
The current ease of reproduction and online transmission of perfect
copies of digital works is one of the fundamental characteristics of the bor-
derless era that led the United States to be cautious when considering the
application of the principle of exhaustion ­ or what is generally referred
to in the United States as the first sale doctrine ­ to online transmissions
of digital works. The first sale doctrine does not currently apply to these
transmissions under United States copyright law, but the question was the
subject of an extensive study by the United States Copyright Office2 and
is raised again on occasion as new online technologies and delivery mecha-
nisms emerge.3 This paper briefly examines the background and reasons



* Register of Copyrights, United States Copyright Office.
1 Statute of Anne § 7 (1709).
2 DMCA Section 104 Report: A Report of the Register of Copyrights

Pursuant to § 104 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (2001), available at
http://www.copyright.gov/ ...