BREAKING: CJEU rules that the provision of ebooks is an act of communication to the public (so there is NO digital exhaustion under the InfoSoc Directive)
Does EU copyright law allow the establishment of second-hand markets for subject matter (other than software) in digital format? This is the question that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) substantially answered this morning when it handed down its much-awaited judgment [not yet available on the Curia website] in Tom Kabinet , C-263/18 . The answer of the Court is that there is NO such thing as 'digital exhaustion' of the right of distribution under Article 4 of the InfoSoc Directive . More specifically, the provision of ebooks falls within the scope of the right of communication to the public, in relation to which there is no possibility of exhaustion (see Article 3(3)). The decision substantially follows t he Opinion that Advocate General (AG) Szpunar issued a little over 3 months ago [Katpost here ] . As explained in the official press release : The Court found th...