E-BUSINESS LAW OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. Ed by Quinten R Kroes. The Hague: Kluwer Law, 2003. xiv and 249 pp (incl index). ISBN 90 411 1927 2. £51.
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| DOI: 10.2966/scrip.010104.224 | ||
There is a growing need in recent years to find a comprehensive textbook guide for e-commerce and e-business law from the European perspective. Alas, this is not the answer.
The book is directed to legal practitioners and law students; hence it does not pretend to deal with the subject of electronic business law in any depth, which is just as well because there is not much analysis to be found within its pages. The book is a collection of European Directives, Regulations and Decisions, and although there is nothing wrong with a compilation of useful and relevant legislation, there are two main problems with the presentation of the material and the price that make this volume bad value for money.
Firstly, there is nothing in the title to indicate that this is just a collection of EU legislation, which could eventually lead to some consumers to buy this under the mistaken impression that this is a fully edited collection of articles, and not a collection of legislation. It is customary for statute collections to be clearly identified as such, and the absence of a clear indication upfront is a big problem in this particular volume. To be fair, the description on the back of the book does identify this as a collection, and leaves one to wonder why it was not made clearer in the cover.
The other main problem with this collection is the price. At £51 GBP, the price seems excessive when compared to other similar statues collections, such as “Blackstone’s Statutes on IT and e-Commerce”, which is usually to be found at less than £20 GBP. There is little in this volume to justify paying the asking price, particularly in the age of Google and broadband internet access. The book has a very small introduction to each of the major subjects, but these materials are summaries of the directives.
Nevertheless, it must be said that the actual collection is very comprehensive and it could be useful for practitioners, students, academics and those involved in e- business because it is useful to have all of the materials in one place. However, at the suggested price any discerning consumer will be better-off obtaining the materials online.
Andrés
Guadamuz González
Lecturer
School of
Law, University of Edinburgh