Lending books privately: what the law says

Hardly anyone asks this question until they are about to publish their own shelf on a website, and then it arrives all at once: is it legal to lend a book I bought? What if it never comes back? What if I give it away instead of lending it? And what about e-books?

The short answer is reassuring: lending, giving away and reselling the printed copy you bought is entirely lawful, and nobody's permission is required. The long answer is more interesting, because it explains why — and why for e-books the answer is the opposite.

The principle: exhaustion

Copyright reserves a set of exclusive rights to the author, and to whoever acquires those rights — typically the publisher. Among them is the distribution right: placing copies of the work on the market or otherwise making them available to the public.

If that right were unlimited, nobody could resell a used book without asking the publisher. It is not, because of a specific rule in article 17 of Italian Law 633 of 1941: the distribution right is exhausted by the first sale — or the first transfer of ownership — made within the European Union by the rightholder or with their consent.

In plain terms: the moment the publisher sells that copy, its control over that copy ends. From then on the item is yours, and you may do with it what you do with any possession: lend it, give it away, resell it, leave it in a box in the cellar. It is the same reason second-hand shops and market stalls exist.

Note carefully what this does not mean. Exhaustion concerns the circulation of the physical copy, not the content: it does not entitle you to photocopy it in full, to scan it and post it online, or to publish a translation.

Private lending

Free person-to-person lending is the most untroubled case of all. It transfers no ownership, has no commercial purpose, and concerns a copy whose distribution is already exhausted. No rule subjects it to authorisation, and no publisher has ever argued otherwise about a paperback lent to a neighbour.

One clarification is worth making: there is such a thing as a public lending right, which concerns libraries and their collections, and it is a different institution. Article 69 of the same law provides that lending by libraries and record libraries of the State and of public bodies, solely for cultural promotion and personal study, requires no authorisation and carries no remuneration to the rightholder. That is a rule about institutions: it is not the basis for lending between neighbours, which stands on its own.

Where the rules change

E-books can be neither lent nor resold

Here the answer inverts, and it is the most common surprise. In 2019 the Court of Justice of the European Union, deciding the Tom Kabinet case (C-263/18), held that supplying an e-book by download for permanent use is not covered by the distribution right but by the right of communication to the public. And communication to the public is not exhausted.

The practical consequence is stark: there is no second-hand market for e-books, and reselling one requires the rightholder's authorisation. What you bought is not a copy but a licence to use, and licences are worth reading before signing — even when the signature is a button marked "Buy with one click".

It is also why a neighbourhood sharing site only makes sense with printed books. Paper can be lent because it is an object; a file cannot, because it never was one.

Photocopying has a numerical limit

Article 68 permits reproduction for personal use by photocopying or similar means within fifteen per cent of each volume (or issue of a periodical), excluding advertising pages. Copying a chapter for yourself typically falls within that limit; copying the whole volume to avoid buying it does not — regardless of the original being yours.

Libraries have their own regime

Beyond article 69 on lending, publicly accessible libraries, museums and public archives enjoy specific exceptions for reproduction serving their own activities, without direct or indirect commercial advantage. These rules are designed for institutions: they do not extend by analogy to a group of neighbours, and they do not need to.

Three practical questions

"If the book never comes back, have I lost anything legally significant?"

You have lost a possession, exactly as if you had lent a drill. That is a matter between people and, in extreme cases, of ordinary civil law — not of copyright. In practice, for a printed book, the route is the one described in the guide on when a loan goes wrong, not a solicitor.

"Can I charge for a loan?"

Renting for a fee is a different thing from free lending, and not somewhere to wander improvising: the rental right has its own regime. Serenlibrità is by definition a free lending service between people, which settles the question at the root.

"What about the cover? Can I photograph it and publish it?"

Photographing your own copy to show it in a lending listing is a descriptive, proportionate use and is commonly accepted: it identifies the object in your hands. Lifting a cover image from someone else's catalogue and republishing it as your own content is a different matter.

In short

• The distribution right is exhausted by the first sale (art. 17, Law 633/1941): your printed copy is yours.
• Lending, gifting and reselling it is lawful and needs no permission.
• Exhaustion covers the copy, not the content: no wholesale reproduction.
• E-books are the exception: no digital exhaustion (CJEU, Tom Kabinet, C-263/18, 2019).
• Photocopying for personal use is capped at 15% of the volume (art. 68).
• Library lending (art. 69) is a separate institution, for institutions.