Capitol Records v. ReDigi
US case that held in 2018 you cannot resell a used digital song – moving it creates a new copy, and the first-sale doctrine only covers the old one.
ReDigi launched a marketplace for second-hand iTunes purchases in 2011. Its software uploaded the file and deleted it from the seller's machine, so only one copy would exist at a time. Capitol Records sued. The district court in 2013 and the Second Circuit in 2018 agreed: moving a file between two drives makes a new copy, and first sale only lets you sell the copy you own, not create another.
Fair use was rejected too. The result sits awkwardly next to the EU Court of Justice's UsedSoft v. Oracle (2012), which allowed resale of downloaded software licences.