Quote:
Originally Posted by howyoudoin
Does this also apply to the second-hand book market, out of curiosity?
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No, it does not.
It doesn't apply to clearly marked faulty books either (books with some sort of manufacturing error, e.g. slightly different margins etc). Which led to one bookseller in the 90s to regularly mark perfectly fine books as faulty so they could be sold at a discount.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks
So how does that work with ebooks? Mine sell in Germany and I think the price is a direct conversion from the dollar. I set the prices and I think that carries over--but is a tax added to it? Or do you mean that only German produced books have this Buchpreisbindung?
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It's the same for ebooks, though books by foreign publishers do not fall under the Buchpreisbindung (only if they're to be sold mainly in Germany or Austria). How exactly the law makes that distinction, I do not know.
BTW, something counts as a book as long as its main function is book-like, i.e. language courses with enclosed CDs or software, to name one example, are considered books and thus fall under Buchpreisbindung.
[QUOTE=HansTWN;2007301And, as far as I know, the Buchpreisbindung works the same for foreign language books.[/QUOTE]
This is not exactly true. While the language is irrelevant in theory, imported books do not fall under the "Buchpreisbindung". While technically true that German publishers enjoy Buchpreisbindung for their books in Austria and vice versa (an import, no doubt), US and UK books (among others) can be priced freely. I am sure the law has a perfectly fine mechanism for this.
Matt