Archive notice: This article was originally published on July 4, 2012. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The occasion for this ruling was a legal dispute between Oracle and UsedSoft, a company that trades in licenses it purchased from Oracle customers.
In its ruling, the Court states that the principle of exhaustion of the distribution right applies not only when the copyright holder markets copies of its software on a data carrier (CD-ROM or DVD), but also when it distributes them by download from its website.
If the copyright holder makes a copy – tangible or intangible – available to its customer and, at the same time, concludes a license agreement in return for payment by which the customer receives the right to use this copy for an unlimited period, it sells this copy to the customer and thereby exhausts its exclusive distribution right. Such a transaction transfers ownership of this copy. Thus, even if the license agreement prohibits subsequent transfer, the rights holder can no longer oppose resale of this copy.