This is a thornier issue than it would first appear. Absent DRM,
the right of first sale is impossible to enforce equitably.
Applied to a book or physical recording (record, tape, CD, etc)
this line is clear...if you sell the thing, you no longer have the
thing. Selling the thing while retaining a copy is much more
difficult, and it's very easy to tell which is the original and
which is the copy.
With digital works that do not have DRM, it's physically impossible
to determine if a work being sold is the original or a copy.
I think the point here is that there even -IS- a copy... and indeed
since it's identical, it matters not if it's the 'original' or not...
you paid for the ability to enjoy a single copy at a time. If you
'sell' your 'original' and keep the copy, then you have bypassed the
whole value and honesty point of the system.
Although I -WILL- go with THIS side of the thorny thing: the
paradigm is with , say, a hammer, if you LOSE it, you buy a new
one... you lost it. Why is a digital file any different? If you could
make a copy of the hammer as a 'backup' then you;d have 2 hammers...
one of which the creator of the hammer did NOT get paid for, and
indeed his implicit contract with you as supplier of your preferred
quality and design hammer is get a hammer's-worth of cash for each
hammer of his that you get. ... and hey! if you can make ONE back-
up hammer, why not a dozen? Hey! it's a really GOOD hammer and you
really like your friends so you should give them each one of your
copies... what;s the problem? You already paid for your first one.
I'd wager that probably half or more of all the audio CD's
available in used record shops live on as audio files on the
previous owner's computer (or computers, depending on how many
times they've changed hands).
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