: Does the first sale doctrine invalidate non commercial licences? I found this great question on wikipedia that I thought deserved an answer: If I understand this correctly, this could be

Vote Up Vote Down

It does open a slight loophole, but it is a small one.

Let's say Alice writes an article and puts it on a website and explicitly licences it under a licence that allows copying but not sales.

Bob finds the article and thinks everyone should read it so he prints out a bunch of copies and goes down to the corner and starts handing them out. This is legal per licence.

Charly gets a copy from Bob, and decides to sell it to Diane. He can sell it for any price that he is able to negotiate with Diane. This is legal Per the first sale doctrine.

Charly cannot make any copies of the article as he is not licenced to do so having violated the terms. Bob cannot sell copies as he is bound by contract (the licence) not to do so. Diane can either make copies or sell the one she has but not both.

(0)