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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?"
Hi. You are not bidding on this copy of harry potter starting at 1$, you are bidding on this extriemely durable shipping container. The book is merely being included to keep the container from blowing away or being crushed during shipping. THank you.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I am totally ignorant of German law, but is there a German (or EU) principle in copyright similar to the American right of first sale? Basically, in the States, "once a copyright owner sells a copy of his work to another, the copyright owner relinquishes all further rights to sell or otherwise dispose of that copy." Does this not pertain in Europe? When do the copyright owner's rights end? Do they ever? This could be a dangerous precedent, especially if it contradicts the established legal tradition.
"The court's decision made clear that even private sellers have to stick to the fixed book price if they regularly sell new books. "
Looks like if they are used books, you have no restrictions... now we have to have "used" defined......we are from the government - we are here to help...
So I take it that German copyright law doesn't include the same Right Of First Sale that the U.S. law does? Basically, U.S. law gives us the right to resell, or rent, copyrighted works. The VHS rental market would never have taken off if not for the right of first sale, for example.
I'm no expert on this though, especially not for European laws -- can someone comment on why Germany can get away with this?
In France the price of books is fixed by law, and is allowed only a very small variance (along the lines of 5%, and only for special operations i think). The direct consequence of this is that you can still find small and/or specialized bookshops in almost every part town .
Now, this is not the case for records. As a direct result there is very few specialized/independant recordshops left since the buying power of them hudge megastores allowed for unrivalled price and almost no independant recordshop survived.
Consequence : everybody goes dumb from hearing the lame music the megastore sells & promote.
Moreover the price is not that low either, since they are the only one left and can do as they please.
With that aggravating beauty, Lulu Walls.
This restriction is only on the selling of new books. You can still sell your second hand books on there below the list price.
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.
I know its slashdot, but try reading the links sometimes. It helps when you want to discuss it.
First off, This court case is about a journalist selling free samples, effectively first sales of those copies, on Ebay. It has nothing to do with used book trade, which is flourishing here, and will continue to do so. About the price fixing of books, which could be considered as a good thing: Most european countries have laws which govern the price of books. The price is fixed, so that small specialty stores will not be outcompeted by big companies, and so that a wide variety in literature is maintained. The idea is that a fixed price for all books will allow publishers to keep publishing books that perhaps are not destined to become as popular as the next harry potter, with popular titles supporting the less popular ones.
Only if you sell new books, you have to stick to the fixed prices. And that is what we call "Buchpreisbindung". It guarantees the same price for a book in Austria, Germany and Switzerland and it has good reasons. Basically, if you let resellers set the price, rarely bought books will cost much more, and only the few bestsellers will be cheap.
See this (translation).
This ensures that everyone is able to read books he or she likes, and not only what the masses dictate. Also it allows a publisher to try out something new, without so much risk.
Keep open minded - but not that open your brain falls out...
Doesn't Ticketmaster effectively do the same thing? Why should it be any more legal for them to buy up tickets and set a price? They have a contract? Every time you sell a ticket, it's a contract. A ticket is a seat. If they don't want people to be scalping tickets, then they shouldn't sell lots of tickets to the same person. The stupidity is that there's nothing stopping a place from doing *exactly* what the scalper does, since it's the same idea that airlines use for tickets. If a scalper is willing to take the risk and a company is fine with decreasing risk by large ticket sales to a buyer (which in some ways implies scalping), it's their choice. And then people can boycott such companies and their scalper *cough*Ticketmaster/Airlines*cough* because they don't like feeling cheated (notice feeling cheated is a question of moral fairness, not law).
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