Exploration Of Applicability For "the First Sale Doctrine" In Networking Environment

"The first sale doctrine" originated in the US. Specifically referring to copyright owners enjoy the "distribution right", with which they can put copy works to the market, but they will lose the right of control for the copy works after they are permitted by copy owner to sell on the market, or transfer the right of control in other way. Accordingly, the owner who accept copy works will enjoy the right of disposition, such they can sell or rent out the copy works, without the permission of the copyright owner. The purpose of "the first sale doctrine" is to limit the copyright owner’s right after the first sale, protect the right of distribution and keep a interests balance between the rights of different parties and maintain a normal market order.Evolution of Networking contributes to the expansion of the field of copyright. The development of technology enriches the methods to use the work, greatly increasing the benefits arising from the use of work, including economic interests. However, the expansion of a right has a boundary, especially when its violates the legal rights of others or the public interest, it must be restricted.National legislation protects copyright owner’s profits in the process of work through the network transmission, barely without restriction, which puts consumers in a disadvantageous position in most cases. This article is to explore "the first sale doctrine", whether it can be applied in the network environment, to keep balance between individual copyright and public interests in a reasonable configuration.This article is divided into the following four parts:The first part introduces the concept of traditional "the first sale doctrine", and national legislation and international treaties on "the first sale doctrine", clarify "the first sale doctrine" plays an important role in balancing the interests between consumers and copyright owners.The second part is to ravel out the relationship between "the first sale doctrine" and the right of distribution, through analyzing the purpose and range of application of the right of distribution, to explain the plight when traditional "the first sale doctrine" is applied in networking environment.The third part demonstrates that the networking environment should apply "the first sale doctrine" from three aspects. First, the logical starting point of "the first sale doctrine" should be the basic principle of civil law,"the principle if prohibition of abuse of rights" rather than so-called "the right of distribution", even if networking environment is not applicable for distribution right, it still gets the possibility of "the first sale doctrine"; then by revealing the dual attributes of digitization works, clarify the spread of digital works, especially the transaction process will still produce a conflict of ownership and copyright, in order to limit the incidence of abuse of right, it rational to apply "the first sale doctrine" in networking environment; finally point out that, technology usually be used as tool to abuse rights, Combined with the U.S. and Europe related cases, secondary trading of digital works reveal trends and digital works inevitable secondary market property line, thus argued in a network environment for the "first sale doctrine " of practical necessity.The fourth part makes some recommendations and references for the establishment of "the first sale doctrine" in networking environment, based the Chinese legislation and the feature of copyright in network.