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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...
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.
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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