A German court ruled that it is illegal in Germany to operate DVD-renting machines on Sundays, since, according to the court, renting DVDs is a “typical working-day procedure suitable to interfere with Sunday rest” (auf deutsch einen “typisch werktäglichen Lebensvorgang, der geeignet sei, die Sonntagsruhe zu beeinträchtigen”). Note well that no employees are involved in the fully automated renting process at all! The court does acknowledge that the videos rented can be “for the pleasure of customers on Sundays”, but then concludes that “doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be rented during the week”.
How ridiculous.
Germans have (more or less) become “used” to the fact that almost anything has to be closed on Sundays for legal reasons. It used to be similar on Saturday afternoon, but that has changed for the better lately. No shops, no… well, anything, now not even vending machines.
It’s so sad. What can we do against this kind of stubborn stupidity?
(If you find this as ridiculous as I do, then go ahead and digg it!)
After all, we, the Internet generation, are used to do anything anytime.