The Copyright Act protects an author's right of distribution. Nonetheless, after an original work or its lawful copy is transferred with the author's consent, his/her right of distribution to such original or copy is exhausted. The transferees are free to distribute the original or copy of the work. This is called the first sale doctrine or exhaustion doctrine. The right of distribution and its exhaustion are stipulated under Articles 28-1 and 59-1 of the Copyright Act, which state that authors of works have the exclusive right to distribute their works through transfer of ownership. A person who has obtained the ownership of an original work or a lawful copy thereof in Taiwan may distribute it by means of transfer of ownership.

 

In general, the right of distribution that is exhausted applies to the onward transfer of ownership of original works or their copies which are in the form of movables, and not the exploitation in the form of digital copies.

 

However, the Intellectual Property and Commercial Court's judgment (Ref. No. 2024-Ｍin-Chu-Su-21) extends the exhaustion doctrine in the right of distribution to other copyrights such as reproduction and public transmission right. In that case, the defendant was not satisfied with the product that he purchased and thus sold the product on an auction website by taking photos of, among others, the poet (a literary work) and the comics (an artistic work) accompanying the product and posting such photos on the website. The plaintiff claimed against the defendant for copyright infringement by reproducing and publicly transmitting the works without his authorization. However, the court ruled that the defendant took photos of the works for the purpose of demonstrating the product. Since the defendant had lawfully obtained the product before he took photos of the works, the plaintiff's copyright to the works should be deemed exhausted. Thus the plaintiff cannot claim copyright infringement against the defendant. This court judgment can be appealed.