Digital Exhaustion: A Decade After the UsedSoft Case

Abstract

Digital exhaustion has been a recurring theme in EU copyright law. While some may argue that the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the Tom Kabinet case definitively solved the surrounding questions, this paper takes the opposite stance. It offers a critical analysis of the CJEU's major decisions in a decade-long legal saga and examines the current status quo from the perspective of copyright exhaustion in the context of copyright law. The paper pleads for a balanced approach to digital exhaustion in the modern age as the current ruling of the CJEU has resulted in a clear shift of balance in favor of the rightsholders at the expense of users and other stakeholders in the market with copyright-protected works.