The exhaustion principle in copyright means that the right to control the subsequent distribution of the work is exhausted when the right holder offers the work to a transaction by way of sale or the like. Therefore, the rights of the copyright holder regarding distribution rights are limited and free transfer and transaction are possible after that, so it has advantages such as preventing infringement of private property rights, promoting transaction stability, improving user accessibility, and activating the use of works. however, despite these advantages, there is a possibility that the principle of exhaustion of rights in the digital domain may not be applied, the reason for its inapplicability is that the act of sending works can infringe the copyright holder''s right to duplicate, and that the principle of rights loss does not apply because such duplicated works are not original copies produced by the copyright holder. in addition, Internet transmission can easily and quickly replicate copies without any effort or cost, which may cause copyright holders to be reluctant to produce and provide digital works to avoid the dangers of piracy, given that the application of the principle of digital copyright depletion. traditionally, the use of analog works in tangible materials is now rapidly increasing due to the development of technology in Internet and mobile devices, which improves accessibility to works, creating a much greater demand for them than in the past. faced with the rapid development of technology, the proportion of use of digital works is increasing, existing copyright laws that target tangible works have made it difficult to apply the principle of exhaustion of rights for intangible works, so the resale of numerous digital contents is in an area that cannot be legally protected. in the case of resale of a digital work, even if transmission of the work is permitted through the Internet, it is premised that the copy of the sender is automatically deleted or rendered unusable by technical means. The existence of the means is not guaranteed, and even if the sender removes it by himself, it is impossible to confirm that the copy was deleted at the same time as it was transmitted, so it is difficult to apply the principle of exhaustion of rights in the digital domain. in addition, the reason that digital content used in a digital environment can avoid exhaustion of rights because ownership is reserved to the copyright holder by a license agreement rather than sales makes the application of the principle of exhaustion of rights to digital works negative. however, changes in the distribution technology of works using the Internet-based cloud, block chain, etc., and changes in the usage environment and technological development of digital works are also affecting the application of the principle of exhaustion of rights of digital works. with the rapid increase in the use of digital works, concerns about the exhaustion of rights of digital works and demands for resale of digital works exist in the market, and companies are making efforts to introduce a resale model to the market. nevertheless, so far, several precedents in the United States and Europe have shown a position that denies the application of the principle of exhaustion of rights to digital works, and it is difficult to see that there is a clear application standard for its application, so users of copyrighted works are inevitably confused. therefore, the establishment of clear standards on the principle of exhaustion of rights for digital works should be viewed as one of the most important tasks in the current environment for using works. in particular, the recent resale models of digital works by companies such as Google, Amazon, Apple, and ReDigi suggest technical measures to apply the digital rights exhaustion principle, which are developing while solving problems in the copyright law. I think that it can provide an important technical means to advance. Therefore, this thesis examines the characteristics of digital works, changes in usage environment and distribution methods, precedents and legislative attempts related to the principle of exhaustion of rights of digital works abroad. In addition, legal and technical measures to solve this problem are reviewed, and through this, the applicability of the digital rights exhaustion principle is examined.