Talk:First-sale doctrine

Find sources
It seems there are more cases and sources, see:

You can help by expanding on the article using these sources. --Hm2k (talk) 01:21, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems that the link to ABC regarding the recent news of Europe stating that you can resell digital software is broken. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.37.210.174 (talk) 11:12, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page not moved: no consensus after 35 days, no discussion in 27 days. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 14:14, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

First-sale doctrine → First sale doctrine – I think this borders on a technical request. This may or may not be an appropriate use of a hyphen but WP:RS overwhelmingly favor the unhyphenated version. See, for example, the US Attorneys Office, Library Journal, Techdirt, and The National Law Review. On the first page of results for a regular and a Scholar Google search, only one result used the hyphenated form. This is not to say the hyphenated version is a rogue error—Wired and The Atlantic use it, but they're in a definite minority among reliable sources. --BDD (talk) 16:09, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 *  Support Comment. Right, I think either form may be considered correct.  This is getting into a pretty technical aspect of English grammar.  I'm not a grammar expert, but I think the distinction revolves around the difference between a noun and an adjective modifying a noun.  "First sale doctrine" is a noun.  An example that might make it more clear: Three Rivers Stadium is also a noun (a proper name, so capitalized).  Three-Rivers Stadium would be an adjective (three-rivers) modifying the noun stadium, to identify a particular stadium.  First-sale is an adjective modifying doctrine, i.e., disambiguation to distinguish a particular doctrine.  Grammar experts, feel free to correct me if I don't have that quite right. Interesting that French uses a hyphen: Trois-Rivières (disambiguation) – Wbm1058 (talk) 20:45, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Support. I think under most applications of standard English rules, it would be the "first-sale doctrine", but in the real world, it is overwhelmingly referred to as the "first sale doctrine", and that's what should control.  I admit that I wince a little when I see it with the hyphen, so I appreciate the move proposal.  TJRC (talk) 22:17, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, thinking further on it, I don't think my comment "I think under most applications of standard English rules, it would be the 'first-sale doctrine'" is correct. This is the doctrine of the first sale., i.e., the first sale doctrine; not the doctrine of the first-sale.  I don't see anything in WP:HYPHEN that this article title falls squarely into, either, so that style guide is not on-point here; even if it were, I don't think the style guide would go so far to suggest using a different article name than the name under which the doctrine is best known. TJRC (talk) 00:51, 9 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose—While lawyers and related professional types might drop the hyphen because they see this compound term every day, WP is not written for experts. Here, we aim for a wide readership, and the hyphen makes this three-word item easier to parse unless you're very familiar with it. (The first sale doctrine was developed in 1921 ... the first of many sale doctrines was ...) As well, the major style guides and WP's in-house guide say to use a hyphen in such an item. Tony   (talk)  08:00, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe the section Tony is referring to is MOS:HYPHEN. Coincidentally and interestingly enough, it even includes the Trois-Rivières example, but regarding Three Rivers, "hyphens are never inserted into proper-name-based compounds."  However, the compound modifier article says: "consult a dictionary to determine whether a compound adjective should be hyphenated; the dictionary's hyphenation should be followed even when the compound adjective precedes a noun. Hyphens are unnecessary in other unambiguous, regularly used compound adjectives."  So, I suppose Three Rivers is unambiguous.  The question is whether first sale is too—hey, that redirects to our article, so that's a point in favor.  But someone unfamiliar might think, first sale doctrine?  The red link also leans towards not needing the hyphen, but nonetheless, Tony has moved me to the fence. Wiktionary doesn't give any guidance. Wbm1058 (talk) 12:12, 5 September 2012 (UTC) Wbm1058 (talk) 12:24, 5 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose per WP:HYPHEN. Unless there is a "second sale doctrine", the proposed title makes no sense.  —  AjaxSmack   02:34, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Support. (coming back off the fence) Per de facto precedent established in Category:Legal doctrines and principles – Act of state doctrine, Assignment of income doctrine, Attractive nuisance doctrine, Blue pencil doctrine, Correlative rights doctrine, Essential facilities doctrine, Exhausted combination doctrine, Internal affairs doctrine, Living tree doctrine—none of these use a hyphen. First sale is the only doctrine article in that category that uses a hyphen. – Wbm1058 (talk) 22:22, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment - My copy of Black's Law Dictionary (6th ed., 1990 -- I understand they're up to the 9th edition now, but I've never found a need to replace the copy my Mom got me as a gift when I started law school) uses "first sale rule": no hyphen (but no "doctrine," either). TJRC (talk) 18:47, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

John Wiley & Sons Inc. v. Kirtsaeng (2011)
Reporting an error here. From the way I look at it, the textbooks were unlawfully imported into the U.S. by people the defendant knew. This doesn't restrict a person's ability to resell a work that was created outside the U.S., then imported into the States with permission. 68.173.113.106 (talk) 23:32, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

UMG v. Augusto confusion
The article states, that


 * the same 9th Circuit panel that decided Vernor v. Autodesk, refused to apply Vernor's three-factor test in UMG v. Augusto

However, the way I see it, the court did apply the test; UMG did not impose any restrictions on the "use" of the work, so when the court applied the test, the third criterium didn't apply, so the licensing relationship was not created. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.212.53.248 (talk) 23:34, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Why "first sale"?
Is it clear why this is called "First Sale" doctrine? Not to me. Doesn't the same right to re-sell apply to the 2nd sale of a copyrighted item? Gherson2 (talk) 21:56, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I'll have to see if I can find a WP:RS that makes this explicit... but the doctrine means that the copyright holder can exercise its exclusive right to distribute a particular copy of a work only for the first distribution of that copy, i.e., the copy's "first sale". After that, the recipient, and further downstream recipients, of that same copy can resell it without authorization from the copyright holder. The first sale doctrine means that copyright only covers that first sale of the physical article, and not the second, third, etc. sales. TJRC (talk) 23:05, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I have added an explanation here. TJRC (talk) 23:25, 14 January 2019 (UTC)