Sale of adult ebooks to be restricted until after 10pm in Germany

In Germany, a recent legal ruling has restricted the sale of ebooks with exclusively adult content to between 10pm and 6am local time, reports the Indepdenent. The restricted sale window was initially established in a 2002 law called Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag (Youth Media Protection Act), which was created to protect children from buying physical media exclusively for adults, and to restrict adult cinemas’ screening times. The 2002 law has now been expanded to include ebooks, with those in violation of the law subject to a potential fine of up to €500,000 (A$733,519). It is not yet clear how retailers will respond to the new restrictions. German book trade website Boersenblatt reports that the German booksellers’ association is working on a solution that does not require booksellers and retailers to examine each book, and it has been suggested that publishers will need to supply metadata identifying adult titles, which will place the affected titles in a restricted section on retailers’ websites.