The First Sale Doctrine: What if libraries really own Random House eBooks as the publisher asserts?

Rob Maier, director of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and a member of ALA’s Digital Content and Libraries Working Group reported in a  May 10, 2012 ALA E-content blog that "[a]t the Massachusetts Library Association annual conference in Worcester this morning [5/10?], Ruth Liebmann, director of account marketing at Random House, stated emphatically that libraries own the ebooks they purchase from Random House."

Do note the immediately following statement from the E-Content blog editor:

[Ed. Note: This statement won’t really mean anything until a library tries to exercise rights from the first sale doctrine with respect to Random House ebooks. If we really own them, can we ILL them? Can we sell them at a used book sale? —Christopher Harris]

For much more, about the Massachusetts Library Association annual conference panel which was moderated by ALA President (and library association consumer advocate) Molly Raphael, see Libraries Own Random House Ebooks. [JH]

FYI: An LLB reader brought to my attention Rachel Ann Geist's A "License to Read": The Effect of E-Books on Publishers, Libraries, and the First Sale Doctrine, [bepress] 52 IDEA 63 (2012).