디지털 저작물과 권리소진 원칙

Digital Works and the First Sale Doctrine －Analysis on the EULA and Focus on Forward-and-Delete－

The First Sale Doctrine, which plays a role in distributing the resources with regard to the tangible works, faces the possible death in the modern digital world. Most of the IP(Intellectual Property) corporations attempt to control the works through EULA(End User Licence Agreement) developing the DRM(Digital Rights Management) because of the possible unlimited duplication of the works. On the other hand, users argue that they should have the rights to freely lend or dispose of the works that they justly bought, whether they are tangible or intangible works. There has always been tension between the copyright holders’ rights and the users’ rights and the First Sale Doctrine facilitates the user’s approach to the copyrighted works during the last 100 years. Even though the environment surrounding the copyrighted works has been changed, the First Sale Doctrine should continue to play an original role. For the tangible digital copyrighted works, the First Sale Doctrine should still be applied by strictly interpreting the EULA, and for the intangible copyrighted works, the free transactions between the users should be guaranteed by building the Forward-and-Delete system and then applying the First Sale Doctrine. In preparation for the upcoming total digital world, the scheme under which the several users can share one account and can more cheaply access to the digital copyrighted works is necessary to build. Now some IP corporations have their own policy to have the Forward-and-Delete System and Account Sharing System. To guarantee the legal stability and future predictability, the minimum guideline should be articulated in the relevant statutes. I review the several cases of the foreign countries and Microsoft’s X-box One, the next-generation video game console and also emphasize that Forward-and-Delete system and the Account Sharing need to be adopted in this article.