Re: personal items of professor / teacher on reserve

On 06/30/2000, Mike A. Cobb <mikecobb[_at_]liberty.edu> wrote:
>
> Is it a copyright violation for a library to place a personal item
> belonging to a teacher on reserve for his/her class to use? Teachers
> frequently place library-owned material on reserve for their class,
> but it seems different to do that with their own personal items.

No, it is not a violation. Sec. 109(a) states that "the owner of a particular copy ... lawfully made under this title ... is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy." Under this section, known as the "first-sale doctrine," the person who owns a lawful copy may lend it to anyone else.

Tyler T. Ochoa
Associate Professor
Whittier Law School
<tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu> Received on Thu Jul 06 2000 - 18:43:38 GMT