Controversial German Book Publisher to Change Ownership

Despite its popularity, the company has attracted a lot of controversy over selling erotic books as part of its business, among many other different kinds of reading materials.The pieces of erotic literature that it sold werent really what sparked the controversy that erupted in October 2011, as there are many other businesses in Germany that sell materials far more explicit than anything sold by Weltbild.Erotic magazines, DVDs and books are sold relatively openly in the country, which typically has a liberal attitude when it comes to pornographic materials.The issue at stake was that the company is actually owned by Germanys Catholic Church, which, as anyone would guess, generally doesnt view erotic material of any kind in a very positive light.In order to try to put out the fire caused by the recent controversy, the company has stated that the content that it sells is erotic material, rather than pornography.Even though there are some rather tame romance booksin their collection that just contain a few passages talking about sex, many of the 2500 were far more explicit and had titles such as The Lawyers Whore.But despite all that has happened, it looks like Weltbild will continue operations as normal, including selling erotic books, with one major change: the ownership of the company.According to a report published by The Global Post, Germanys Bishops Conference has given the order that the Catholic Bishops who have ownership of the company sell their stake in it as rapidly as possible.It would seem that even though the actual revenues from the ales of erotic material are very low, representing less than 0.1 % of the companys income, the Catholic Church is putting the business up for sale, possibly in a move to avoid further controversy, according to industry commentators.It should be noted that the Catholic Church has attempted to have Weltbild management remove the controversial materials from its collection, but they refused saying that they have an interest in giving paying customers access to the reading materials they wanted, even if this included erotica.As of right now, it is not clear how the sale of Weltbild will proceed or who is going to buy it.Given the fact that the companys operations are doing quite well and the business is profitable, whoever takes it over will now own a very well performing book seller for the domestic German market.