Resale rights allow lawful purchasers of copyrighted items to sell or give away the particular copy they acquired without infringing on the copyright holder’s exclusive right to distribute. However, resale rights do not apply to duplicate digital copies, and rental for profit requires permission from the copyright holder.
Resale rights are rights that belong to any lawful purchaser of a copyrighted item, such as a book, film, or music. These resale rights are granted under a legal theory called the first sale doctrine, which states that once the copyright holder of a creative work sells or gives away a copy of that work, they no longer have rights to that particular work. copy. This legal concept is what allows people to make private sales of copyrighted items that they legally purchase without infringing on the copyright holder’s exclusive right to distribute. Although resale rights previously allowed legitimate purchasers of copyrighted works to lease those works for profit without the copyright owner’s permission, most jurisdictions have enacted laws prohibiting this practice.
Normally, a copyright holder has the exclusive right to distribute copies of the creative work for which they own the copyright. However, the first sale doctrine severs all of your rights to a particular copy of your creative work after you sell or gift that copy to another person. This means that any legitimate purchaser of the copy can sell or give away the particular copy that he has acquired through legal means without asking the copyright holder for permission to distribute the work. Conversely, if he acquires the copy by illegal means, he has no right to resell that particular copy and any transfer violates the copyright holder’s exclusive right to distribute.
The proliferation of digital copies of music and movies has changed these resale rights somewhat. By their very nature, it’s easy to create identical copies of music or movies in their digital form without any special equipment. Therefore, resale rights generally do not apply to duplicate digital copies of lawfully acquired music or movies, unless the retailer deletes the initially purchased digital copy.
Previously, resale rights also included the right to rent legally purchased creative works for profit. However, in the early 1980s, there was a rise in such businesses and copyright holders felt that the rental businesses were a threat to sales. As a result, most jurisdictions enacted legislation exempting the rental of such creative works for profit from resale rights. Therefore, anyone renting a legally purchased copy of a creative work to a third party must first seek permission from the copyright holder or the rental constitutes a violation of the owner’s exclusive right to distribute.
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