Reselling copies of MP3s you legally purchased violates copyright, according to a ruling made over the weekend by a New York district court judge. The ruling is a victory for Capitol Records, a subsidiary of Vivendi, and marks a devastating loss to ReDigi, a website that lets users resell copies of their legally purchased MP3s. The decision applies only to the New York jurisdiction for now, but could serve as a model for other states, and it's highly unlikely they would rule any differently.

Capitol first sued ReDigi in early 2012, and ReDigi sought to have the case dismissed under the longstanding American "first sale" doctrine, which says that copyright on physical goods applies only through the first time it's sold by the seller to the first customer. After that, the customer may resell a good to anyone else without fear of copyright infringement.

Capitol’s copyrights have been infringed

But because in this case ReDigi makes a copy of the songs in question, the judge found that the company was violating Capitol's song copyrights. As the ruling states:

"Capitol did not approve the reproduction or distribution of its copyrighted recordings on ReDigi’s website. Thus, if digital music files are 'reproduce[d]' and 'distribute[d]; on ReDigi’s website, within the meaning of the Copyright Act, Capitol’s copyrights have been infringed."

Now the case proceeds on to the damages phase, where the court will decide how much ReDigi owes Capitol in damages and whether will be shut down entirely. We've reached out to both companies for more information on what they plan to do next and will update when we hear back.

Update: ReDigi has issued a statement on the matter, pointing out that the ruling applies to the 1.0 version of its service, and that the 2.0 iteration — which is currently in operation — is not impacted. We're reproducing the statement in its entirety below.