The first sale doctrine and the digital books

Abstract

This article discusses the issues related to digital books property compared to printed books, addressing the distinction between acquisitions and licensing. The First Sale Doctrine is applied to physical objects and says that a book purchaser is the owner of the item and can use it freely, making loans, reselling, donating, or discarding without the need for payments of the copyrighted work. With digital books the application of the doctrine has been questioned, on the premise that the work is a software and not an object, and therefore not applicable to the First Sale Doctrine. This article uses the method of bibliographic research, with theoretical analysis collected from 2005 to 2015 in magazines, books, conference papers and Web sites. The research focused on foreign literature, including the opinion of institutions such as the European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA), the American Library Association (ALA) and the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), plus analysis of the situation in Brazil. This article aims to guide librarians on the changes observed in the libraries related to digital content licensing under the aspect of the use of the media and availability of services contracted for the patrons.