Selling copyrighted material (used books)

[kmcgovern]

What is the name of your state? Florida

I am trying to find legal information regarding selling used books, specifically educational resources, in a used book store. Please respond if you can provide information regarding any copright considerations and/or legal limitations that may apply to the selling of teacher resources (i.e. workbooks, books, bulletin board materials, etc.) in a used bookstore. Thank you.

 

[divgradcurl]

In general, there is the "first sale" doctrine, which basically says that once you sell a copy of a copyrighted work to someone else, you lose control over that particular copy. So, if you buy a copy of a book, you can do what you want -- with that copy. You can resell it to someone else, give it away, destroy or deface it, whatever. You can't create a new copy of a purchased work, nor can you create a derivative work, but you can certainly sell a used book.

Now, because these are teacher's materials, perhaps there are further agreements between the teachers and the publishers that might limit resale in some way -- there's no way to know without contacting the publishers themselves. However, such an agreement would be contractual in nature, and would have nothing to do with copyright law.