> The first-sale doctrine does not neatly fit transfers of copies of digital works because an actual transfer does not actually happen -- instead, the recipient receives a new copy of the work while, at the same time, the sender has the original copy (unless that copy is deleted, either automatically or manually). For example, this exact issue played out in Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc., a case involving online marketplace for pre-owned digital music.
> E-books have the same issue. Because the first sale doctrine does not apply to electronic books, libraries cannot freely lend e-books indefinitely after purchase. Instead, electronic book publishers came up with business models to sell the subscriptions to the license of the text. This results in e-book publishers placing restrictions on the number of times an e-book can circulate and/or the amount of time a book is within a collection before a library’s license expires, then the book no longer belongs to them.
Legally, it does get murky in the U.S. That has nothing to do with whether it's right or not, but it does mean it's not "making shit up about what you think makes sense". It's the actual precedent described in the very article you linked.