You're incorrect. When you buy a DVD, you're buying the physical plastic, and licensing the content represented therein.
And the first sale doctrine isn't a "consumer protection law." It's a judicial gloss on top of the copyright act that has never been codified into statute.
§109 was part of the 1976 Copyright Act, so first sale has been codified in statute for 36 years.
I don't think the Copyright Act suggests that every purchase of a medium containing a copy of a copyrighted work should be treated as a license rather than a sale. Instead, it says (§106) that the copyright holder "has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize" six particular acts in relation to the work, independently of having sold a particular copy (but not, apparently, other acts).
Comments
You're incorrect. When you buy a DVD, you're buying the physical plastic, and licensing the content represented therein.
And the first sale doctrine isn't a "consumer protection law." It's a judicial gloss on top of the copyright act that has never been codified into statute.
The first sale doctrine is statutory as well as judicial. See 17 USC §109 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/109).
§109 was part of the 1976 Copyright Act, so first sale has been codified in statute for 36 years.
I don't think the Copyright Act suggests that every purchase of a medium containing a copy of a copyrighted work should be treated as a license rather than a sale. Instead, it says (§106) that the copyright holder "has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize" six particular acts in relation to the work, independently of having sold a particular copy (but not, apparently, other acts).