Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote: > I think the "first sale" doctrine is just a USA thing[*], and I don't > know much about it, but I think the idea is that selling a hard-copy > book second-hand does not count as copying or distributing and can > therefore be done without permission from the copyright holder, so the > reseller would not be bound by the GPL.
European copyright law has what's known as the "community exhaustion" doctrine. This doctrine says that your copyrights on copies you release (or authorize to be released) in the EU are "exhausted". In other words, you can't enforce them anymore against people who resell these copies. It only applies to resell of physical copies, not to things like reading them on the radio or turning them into plays. It also does not apply if the copies are put on the market outside the EU. See for example Article 4 of Directive 2001/29/EC I'm not sure it is at all clear whether this applies to software made available on physical carriers. Often it is argued that software is not "sold" within the meaning of this doctrine but rather it is licensed. Others consider the carrier with software to be a product that is sold because it is transferred to someone else in return for money. The license is then simply the general terms & conditions of the sale. However, it's fairly established that if you modify the work before reselling it, exhaustion does not apply. Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/
