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Old 04-08-2010, 10:45 AM   #38
Xenophon
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Location: Redwood City, CA USA
Device: Kobo Aura HD, (ex)nook, (ex)PRS-700, (ex)PRS-500
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I'd have to disagree with your position on both of your two footnotes. For the first, the used book market exists exactly because of the "First Sale Doctrine" (U.S.) or the doctrine of "Exhaustion" (European Union). In this sense buying and selling used books is exactly the same as buying and selling used-generic-physical-objects. So the impossibility of enforcing a strict prohibition is not relevant.

For the hypothetical in your second, I think that the proprietors of such a site would likely end up in court (at least here in the U.S). I also fully expect that they'd win! Because (in this hypothetical case) there are no misbehaving users, the site would be conforming perfectly with First Sale Doctrine -- no harm, no foul. DRM issues might well make those single copies useless to the downloader, but that's not part of the hypothetical case. I also suspect that the EU doctrine of exhaustion would make it legal in Italy -- doesn't EU law take precedence?

As always, I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice!

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