Targosz, Tomasz --- "Exhaustion in Digital Products and the ‘Accidental’ Impact on the Balance of Interests in Copyright Law" [2010] ELECD 521; in Bently, Lionel; Suthersanen, Uma; Torremans, Paul (eds), "Global Copyright" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Global Copyright

Editor(s): Bently, Lionel; Suthersanen, Uma; Torremans, Paul

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848447660

Section: Chapter 26

Section Title: Exhaustion in Digital Products and the ‘Accidental’ Impact on the Balance of Interests in Copyright Law

Author(s): Targosz, Tomasz

Number of pages: 17

Extract:

26. Exhaustion in digital products
and the `accidental' impact on the
balance of interests in copyright
law
Tomasz Targosz*

1 EXHAUSTION OF THE DISTRIBUTION RIGHT IN
DIGITAL COPIES

The problem of exhaustion with regard to digital products is an example
of a legal matter that may at first glance appear unequivocal but because
of the alleged `unfairness' tends to be questioned by some legal scholars
and sometimes even courts. In Poland the legal situation of exhaustion
of distribution rights in digital products seems to correspond to the
European average ­ it is rather generally assumed that exhaustion may
only apply to material copies of copyright works. Consequently, exhaus-
tion may of course apply to digital products if they have been recorded
on a tangible medium (for example a CD or DVD); however if the same
copyrighted work is made available online without a tangible copy being
transferred, no exhaustion occurs.1 Thus it is not a digital or analogue


* Dr Tomasz Targosz, Institute of Intellectual Property Law, Jagiellonian
University, Kraków.
1 J. Barta and R. Markiewicz (2005), Prawo autorskie i prawa pokrewne.

Komentarz [Copyright and related rights. Commentary], Kraków: Wolters Kluwer,
p. 453; E.Traple (2007), (in) Barta J. (ed) System prawa prywatnego. T. 13. Prawo
autorskie, [System of private law. Vol. 13. Copyright], Warszawa, pp. 163, 168;
E. Traple (2002), `Znaczenie wyczerpania prawa wprowadzania do obrotu we
wspólczesnym prawie autorskim' [Significance of exhaustion of the distribution
right in the present copyright law] in Wyczerpanie praw wlasnoci intelektualnej
[ ...