Exhaustion Doctrine: Close to the Ultimate Aim of Copyright

Abstract: The exhaustion doctrine (also known in some jurisdictions as the ''first sale doctrine See U.S. Copyright Code Section 109(a)'') is one of the basic rules of intellectual property (IP) system, and is applied to many IP rights, from copyright to trademark. The term ''exhaustion'' or ''first sale'' describes the concept of this rule, where, after the ''first sale'' of a particular legitimate work, the IP owner may no longer control or restrict the use or resale of a work use, because his IP rights to the work is exhausted. The exhaustion doctrine is generally grouped into two kinds, territorial exhaustion and universal exhaustion, or, national and international exhaustion J.A.L. Sterling, World Copyright Law (Sweet &&semic Maxwell, London, 2003) Section III - 1001.. The distinction between international and national exhaustion depends on the treatment of their legal status, according to the importing nation's laws, when those legitimate goods have been imported without the authorization of local IP Right(IPR)'s holder. With regards to copyright, for quite a long time in copyright history, there was only the doctrine of national exhaustion. Since the copyright system was created, the national authorities have played an important role in granting copyright to authors before the first modern copyright law - 1710 Statute of Anne in the U.K, protection similar to modern copyright was granted nationally to the Stationers' Company as a privilege W. Cornish and D.llewelyn, Intellectual Property: Patent, Copyright, Trade Marks and Allied Right (Sweet &&semic Maxwell, London, 2007) p. 377.. Since then, most countries developed their own copyright system, varying from the 1834 Royal Law on Printing in Spain to the Urhebettecht in Germany M. Woodmansee, 'The Genius and the Copyright: Economic and Legal Condition of the Emergence of the ''Author''', in W.T.Gallagher (ed.), Intellectual Property (Ashgate, The England, 2007) pp. 4-26.. The territorial system built upon the boundary line of the countries dominates copyright legislation until the development of new technology that largely quickened the speed of the copy's reproduction and distribution. In terms of increasingly trans-national markets, territorial protection turned out to be the obstacle preventing the author from receiving remuneration in countries other than where their creative activities had taken place See W. Cornish and D.llewelyn, Supra note 4, pp.379-280, eg. The UK, the commercial position as a considerable exporter of copyright materials and strong interest in reciprocal copyright arrangement other countries and its colonies.. In order to protect the benefit of the author in the international context, in the end of nineteen century, the international community entered into a multilateral agreement for copyright, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886. The nature and scope of copyright was for the first time proposed and universal accepted. Since that time, copyright has experienced a process of internationalization. Even today, we are still undergoing this process, as does the exhaustion doctrine. The rule that a copyright is exhausted when the copyrighted work first placed at market anywhere in the world is becoming accepted under national law.