do you have the right to resell a digital book?

While the French government relaunched the debate this week on the establishment of a possible tax on second-hand books, the question of electronic books is currently escaping the debate. It must be said that while a possible tracking tax would obviously be easier to implement on dematerialized products, a strict framework exists regarding their resale.

The opportunity yes, but not for everyone

When you buy a book from your bookseller, you have the right to resell it on Momox or Leboncoin after reading it. You can also be generous and lend it or offer it to a loved one. For dematerialized products, the rules are completely different. Since 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union has officially prohibits the resale of e-books between individuals. It ruled that this practice was a copyright infringement, falling under the copyright treaty of the World Intellectual Property Organization.

At the time, the decision marked the conclusion of a lawsuit brought by several publishers against the Dutch e-book sales and resale platform, Tom Kabinet. Unlike physical books, which wear out with use and over time, virtual copies of a book stored on an e-reader do not deteriorate. It would therefore be theoretically possible to resell them indefinitely. Thus, the resale of these works in digital format prevents remuneration for the authors.

In the digital world, nothing is second-hand

Nothing very surprising in substance, since the legislation on second-hand digital books joins that of the Paris High Court concerning digital copies of video games. As a reminder, the UFC-Que-Choisir association attacked Valve and its online digital video game sales platform, Steam, in order toallow players to resell their dematerialized games – like sales of second-hand physical video games. The Paris High Court ultimately ruled in favor of Valve, considering that a used video game must necessarily be physical.

Concretely, and this is valid for any dematerialized material, when you buy a digital book, you buy a restricted use license and non-transferable rather than a real “hard” cultural product. It's the same principle as on Spotify or Netflix: the content you rent or buy is not really yours, but is simply lent by the rights holders for private, restricted use.