Quote:
Originally Posted by zeb
Any EU resident is able to buy goods or services in any other country of the EU. There is no import: the EU zone is a unique, whole trading zone. In the UK, there was the case of a pub owner showing football games using a Greek network (she had subscribed to the Greek channel, legally). Sky UK tried to sue her, using exclusive football rights in the UK for Sky. Guess what? She won: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/25/k...l-against-sky/
"The ECJ said last autumn that national laws that prohibit the import, sale or use of foreign decoder cards were contrary to the freedom to provide services."
"She took her fight for the right to use the cheaper provider to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) which ruled in October 2011 that having an exclusive system was "contrary to EU law"."
I wonder why this should not be applicable to ebooks. |
Because it has nothing to do with laws, actually. It has to do with a contract between the author and the publisher (not the retailer), where the publisher has only been granted rights to publish in a specific country (and for ebooks, distribution = end user location). Those same rights get reflected out to the retailers (not just Amazon) and are enforced due to the author's restrictions (the author has the rights in other areas or has assigned them to someone else).
Also, you'll find that the laws on ebooks are also entirely different than for print books or any physical item (and the UK is it's own entity, despite being in the EU); Germany has price protection laws in effect (still, I believe) that take precedence, for example.