A lawyer for the city said the ruling could affect as many as 10 other similar middle-income housing projects that are seeking to become private cooperatives.

Other concert organizations and private cooperatives are now joining the fray.

The party platform called for a "free people's state" (freier Volkstaat) which could align private cooperatives with state organizations.

But the miners have minimal protections under the system of private cooperatives and state-run facilities.

About 250,000 private cooperatives have sprouted in the four years since limited private enterprise became legal.

Instead, they are proposing a network of private, nonprofit cooperatives.

Members of private cooperatives are now taxed on their profits at the same flat rate as ordinary workers, about 13 percent.

To be sure, the private cooperatives do not have the answers in making health care universally available.

It became a private cooperative in December.

In this case, Mr. Akchurin claims to have found a legal way around regulations barring private cooperatives from directly publishing books.