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German Court Fixes Book Prices On Ebay
krez writes "Yesterday, a German court decided that it is illegal to sell books below the prices set by publishing houses. In the court's view, German books are exempt from EU free-market restrictions because they represent an "important cultural good". I guess this is what happens when the rights of collectives, and groups of peoples supersede the rights of the individual to do with his property as he/she sees fit. The implications of this could be far reaching, having an impact on your right to sell old CDs, DVDs, perhaps even art?"
The German "Buchpreisbindung" (fixed prices for professional sellers) has been in effect for a long time. It has nothing to do with DVDs etc. The only "new" thing about it is the court's decision that it's also valid for eBay, which doesn't really come as a surprise.
Over here prices where set, but the big sellers got together and refused to stock a publishers books unless the let them set the price. A court case followed which the sellers won. I encourage Germans to ignore the rule and hope the law sees sense.
RTFA this decision is about selling NEW books. It does not conflict with Right of First Sale.
In Germany and Austria, prices for new books are fixed, i.e. a new book
always costs the same in every bookstore, including web
bookstores like Amazon, so that bookstores don't compete on price.
It does, however, not apply to (a) used books, (b) books
where the rest of an edition is being discounted by the
publishers, (c) books imported from other countries, (d) any other media, like music CDs, DVDs, software etc..
This law was made to protect small bookstores with chiefly literary,
cultural and academic programs from the competition of bookstore
chains (like Barnes & Noble in the U.S.) and mail order bookstores.
While one might have different opinions about free markets and free
pricing, this system indeed works as intended. Unlike in other Western
countries, Germany and Austria benefit from a wealth of small quality bookstores
in every town. In addition, there exists - since decades - a very efficient
national book wholesaler system,
so that any bookstore, regardless the size, can get any available book
for a customer usually on the next day (if it's not on stock in the
store already). Despite all this, Amazon still managed to
establish a hugely profitable business in Germany for various reasons -
the comfort of browsing an online catalogue and because
they offered, for the first time in Germany, an efficient way of ordering
English-language books.
The court decision simply maintains the fixed book price law for Ebay sales of
new books by commercial traders. It does not apply to Ebay sales of
second-hand books.
-F
gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70
Er, scalping tickets is when you sell tickets above their listed price. The problem is that tickets inherently have a limited utility, and supply decreases towards their end-of-life (hence, raising their value and price). That way, one person might buy 100 tickets for a show that will be sold out, and sell them with a 200% markup to fans outside the stadium, since there's effectively a zero supply.
No comment.
If you didnt read the article, it was a suit brought about by a bookseller against a reviewer who was selling unread review copies of books on ebay for under the new selling price.
That would fit the definition of used to most people.. It was sent via mail to someone who took it out of the package and let it sit around their house.. Whether or not you actually read a book doesn't matter. I've sold tons of used college books where the only thing used about them is that they sat around for a semester.
There's two simple answers to this:
First, you don't know the publishing business. (I've spent 6 years in it.) Publishers deal with bookshops on a "sale or return" basis. The publisher only gets the money on books that are actually sold by the bookstore; unsold ones are returned. So really, there is no sale from the publisher to the bookstore: the publisher just supplies the bookstore with books and takes a cut on whateve gets sold.
Secondly, the publisher can set a resale price with the bookstore as part of its agreement to supply the books. First sale rights can be overriden by contractual agreements between the parties.