Study On The Application Of The First Sale Doctrine To Digital Music Works In Online Environment

The first sale doctrine has always been an important tool to balance the interests between copyright owners and the public under copyright law.With the progress of the dissemination technology of works,the balance of interests between the copyright owners and the public in the first sale doctrine regulated by the traditional copyright law in the field of digital music has been broken.Whether digital music works in the online environment can be applied to the first sale doctrine is a big problem in the digital era.This article is aimed at this problem,based on the basic purpose of copyright law to balance the interests between copyright owners and the public,trying to analyze the possibility of application of the first sale doctrine to digital music works in the online environment.This paper is divided into three parts apart from the introduction and the conclusion.The first part is the challenge of application of the first sale doctrine to digital music works in the online environment.This part tries to give the reader an overall and clear impression of the first sale doctrine through the concept,legal basis and applicable requirements.It also analyzes the three major problem of applying the first sale doctrine to digital music works:the nature of transaction for the digital music works,the difference between distribution rigth and right of dissemination via information networks,the application of the first sale doctrine can't affect the legality judgment standard of reproduction.The second part is comparing the legislation and practice of resolving related problems under the foreign copyright law.This part will review the relevant legislative attempts and the judicial practice under EU and U.S.copyright law.The third part is construction of application of the first sale doctrine to digital music works in the online environment.It will puts forward the idea that application of the first sale doctrine to digital music works in the online environment under China copyright law.Based on the current copyright law under China,combined with international treaties,and by drawing on the experience of foreign legislation,this part solves the three difficulties of applying the first sale doctrine to the digital music works in the online environment.this part will use digital rights management technology and digital resale royalties to propose specific plans for applying the first sale doctrine to digital music works in the online environment.