the right of first sale in the digital space just need to be created to fix this mess

That sounds nice at first, but if you think about it, the logical conclusion is that: rather than an artist making a sale per person who wants to experience their work, they would make sales proportional to the maximum number of simultaneous viewers. With digital ownership, it would be trivial to instantly transfer ownership, so the moment someone is done playing a game or watching a movie, they’ll sell it instantly to someone else.

The only content that could benefit in such an economy is low production value slop that seeks to go instantly viral and issue licenses while there’s still demand. Then by the time it dies down they’re on to their next slop hit. That and live-service titles that try to keep people holding their licenses. Short single-player experiences, and games from small creators who rely on passive income from a few new people finding their game over time would sell a few copies at first, and then the licenses out there would just always undercut the purchase of any new license.

Also the exchanges would make a bunch of money by taking a cut of each sale. Which is arguably better than just Sony or Valve taking their cut.

I don’t like it either, but we can’t act like right of first sale for digital licenses would solve all problems and not create any new ones.