It does have some teeth. Disney v Redbox ended up ruling that Redbox could not resell digital copies of movies from bundle packs because Disney had in the terms that it was only allowed to be sold together.

But there is another case that went all the way to the supreme Court regarding resale of textbooks. Kurtsang v wiley. Textbook publisher Wileyclaimed that because they put "not for sale in the US" on their cheaper, but nearly identical international version textbooks, that meant they could dictate as such.

But the defendants prevailed and the supreme Court ruled that the first sale doctrine applied and lawful purchasers of the books could import them and sell them wherever they want.

This is a rather recent precedent because Costco lost a similar case v Omega a few years earlier, but it did not set a precedent.

The textbook one did.

But I suspect that there were some additional copyright and licensing complexities that made the Disney case different. Especially since it was two copies of the same item, just in different formats. Also, Disney, so probably the most experienced, well funded, and vicious gang of lawyers in existence.

But I'm not sure if a straightforward resale of a digital item has been tested in the courts. It seems with the Kurtsang v Wiley precedent, you would have a good chance of winning.

> "Could a bookseller add a license to a physical book, and suddenly you can't sell it or lend it out? "

Probably. I mean, they're already selling physical items laden with DRM (DVD/bluray), presumably in those cases they are selling you "a license to watch the disk." The ability to restrict first sale of DRM'd movies is probably on their TODO list I'd wager, or their list of greatest regrets.

Incidentally, years ago, they did manage to invent a self-destructing DVD obsensibly for rental-without-return purposes. Technology Connections has a good video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccneE_gkSAs

The actual answer appears to be that you can sell add-on digital content which is licensed only for sale with the physical item, and that’s OK. But you cannot add license terms to the physical book itself, the book can be resold freely. That’s recently been affirmed by the Supreme Court.

Hypothetically if they had the technology to create a paperback book that self-destructs when anybody but you opens it, would that business model be illegal? As far as I know, SCOTUS said companies can't use the legal system to prevent resale of their books. But did they say that technical solutions are also banned?

If you buy a product which is designed for a single use, knowing that it’s a single use product, and obviously this is something that would have to fail gracefully and safely, I really don’t see a problem with that.

Obviously companies (and therefore customers) should be paying for the ecological impact of their waste product.