Licencing restriction and first sale doctrine UK re. secondhand book
<p>Does a geographical licence restriction hold after resale as secondhand item?</p>
<p>I have a book (in UK) that is no longer of any use to me, that I now plan to sell on, and notice that there is a restriction printed both inside and on the cover &quot;This edition is licenced for sale only in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.  Circulation of this edition outside of these territories is unauthorised and strictly prohibited.&quot;</p>
<p>Does the doctrine of first sale hold such that I can sell this on, even though that would effectively be circulating the book outside the stated territories?  As I bought the book secondhand, does that serve to exhaust/limit copyright and licencing restrictions, or would any contravention of copyright/licence continue to be attached to the book, regardless of how many owners it has had?</p>

<p>You are not bound by any contract. You bought a physical good that the seller was barred from selling outside of the listed countries by his supplier. You did not enter a contract with the seller's supplier.</p>
<p>Let's look the stream of commerce:</p>
<ol>
<li>Supplier of the item (Printing press) offers it.</li>
<li>Sale <em>with a sales limiting contract</em> to resellers.</li>
<li>Sale by <em>reseller</em> to customer <strong>without</strong> limiting contract.</li>
</ol>
<p>The first sale doctrine says, that without a form of contract, the rights of the supplier are exhausted in step 2. Even <em>with</em> a contract limiting the reseller's rights, step 3 exhausts any right the supplier has in the item, unless he <em>too</em> explicitly signs a contract. Selling an item in normal commerce is <strong>not</strong> satisfying this requirement.</p>
<p>There already were no rights in the physical copy of the book when whoever bought the book first sold it to the second-hand seller you bought it from, and there can't be any more rights in the selling of this book gained by the original supplier <em>unless</em> he bought the book back from you.</p>

<p>It will be infringement by issue of a copy to the public, contrary to <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/18?timeline=false" rel="nofollow noreferrer">s.18 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988</a>.</p>
<p>It seems clear that the book has not previously been put into circulation in the EEA by or with the consent of the copyright owner.</p>
<p>Hence by issuing the copy to the public you are infringing the copyright in it.</p>
<p>Copyright law IS set up to allow companies to maintain differential pricing in different countries. It is NOT simply a matter of contract. You may not like it, but it's true.</p>

<p>In the U.S. it was considered a copyright violation to import a book printed and &quot;first&quot; sold out of the U.S.</p>
<p>That changed with a SCOTUS case, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirtsaeng_v._John_Wiley_%26_Sons,_Inc." rel="nofollow noreferrer">Kirtsaeng_v.John_Wiley &amp; Sons</a> in 2008. Now &quot;first sale&quot; is not interpreted as having any implied geographic limitations.</p>

copyright united-kingdom licensing