L'esaurimento UE dei diritti

This paper examines the evolution of the EU copyright exhaustion, from its first recognition by the European Court of Justice in the Deutsche Grammophon case to the recent perspective taken by the CJEU in the Usedsoft case with respect to digital copies. Taking into account the economic rationale of the principle of exhaustion and considering the ongoing dematerialisation of markets for copyrighted works, the author investigates whether – in the light of international and EU legislation and of the ambiguous approach of the European Court of Justice when requested to interpret the copyright rules in the context of the digital environment – such principle will still play a central role in the near future as a tool to avoid the artificial partitioning of the common market.