US-CA11 · jury_instructions
11th Cir. Pattern Jury Instr. (Civil) 9.26
Copyright – Defenses – Affirmative Defense – First Sale
The exclusive right to distribute a particular copy of a copyrighted work
under the Copyright Act extends only to the first sale (or other transfer of
ownership) of the copy. Once title to a copy passes through a first sale (or other
transfer of ownership) by the copyright holder, the owner of that copy may transfer
it to another person, through sale or otherwise, without the copyright owner’s
permission.
To establish the “first sale” defense to infringement of [name of plaintiff]’s
distribution right, [name of defendant] must prove each of the following elements
by a preponderance of the evidence:
First, you must find that the copy that [name of defendant] transferred was
lawfully made under the Copyright Act.
And second, you must find that [name of defendant] owned the copy or was
authorized by the owner of the copy to transfer it to another person.
If you find that [name of defendant] has proved the above elements by a
preponderance of the evidence, your verdict must be for [name of defendant] on
the claim for infringement of [name of plaintiff]’s exclusive right to distribute the
copyrighted work.
2
5.13
Provenance
- Source
- ca11.uscourts.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-08-20
- Edition
- civil-2025-12
- Content hash
b86a542a9a0331ee5f734e9f355c03c72a721ca9e06e928b3f0fa4ade7fa0dc5
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