Why Do We Even Have 'Distribution' As A Right Protected By Copyright?

[Greg Troy (KeepFighting)]

An interesting article over at TechDirt discussing distribution rights included within the copyright law which gives some food for thought.

If someone rents a DVD from Netflix, he isn't its owner—merely its possessor, or renter, or lessee. If he distributes the DVD to someone, for instance, giving it to his daughter, he would not only be stealing the copy from Netflix, but also, apparently, infringing the movie studio's copyrights. More strangely, the daughter, even if she was ignorant of the DVD's provenance, would herself be infringing copyright if she were to give the hot DVD to a friend. The tainted disk would afflict each of its subsequent owners, making them copyright infringers when they pass it on, even if they were uninvolved in the original sin of the theft from Netflix.

The fact that you can create such a legally poisoned copy is one of the larger flaws in the implementation of first sale

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121112/03150921014/why-do-we-even-have-distribution-as-right-protected-copyright.shtml