Netherlands: Second-hand E-Book Seller Complains About Dutch Publishers

From Politico.eu:

A Dutch web firm that sells second-hand e-books has complained to the country’s competition authorities that it is being boycotted by three of the largest Dutch publishers.
The bookseller Tom Kabinet claimed the publishers VBK, Meulenhoff/Lannoo and WPG have blocked it from selling their e-books through its website, and alerted the authority for consumers and markets in the Netherlands.
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Tom Kabinet has since found two ways to guarantee the legality of its wares: First, it asked sellers to produce the original download links for their e-books, which contain elements that are difficult to forge. Second, the firm registered in February with the Centraal Boekhuis, the central Dutch book distributor, so it could get into the game of selling new e-books itself.
“If we start selling new e-books then the transaction is in our database and we know,” said Marc Jellema, a co-founder.
However, two days after Tom Kabinet started selling new e-books, titles from the three big publishers were suddenly no longer available to it, Jellema said.”

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See Also: Netherlands: Dutch E-Book Resale Site Has To Close For Now, Court Rules (January 20, 2015)

Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), News