Creating True Digital Ownership with the "First Sale" Doctrine

Copyright law’s “first sale” doctrine enables consumers to control their personal property such as books and DVDs, even if such property contains copyrighted subject matter. The first sale doctrine is a fundamental protection of “impeccable historic pedigree,” codified at 17 U.S. Code § 109. Due to technical limitations, however, policymakers have denied such protections for digital media⸺like songs on one’s iPhone. Without the right of first sale, consumers have slowly lost their personal property rights, deemed the “end of ownership.” Nevertheless, blockchain technology now enables a plain-language, textualist reading of § 109 that leads to a very clear application of the first sale doctrine to blockchain-based digital media. Consequently, it would take congressional action or an acrobatic reading of § 109 to continue barring a “digital first sale.” This article provides the necessary technical insight to explain how a digital first sale exists, for the first time since the internet emerged in 1983