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Originally Posted by tomsem
I will not argue that US laws are better or worse than Germany's or Spain's, but we in the US quite expect to shop around for the best price
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Oh, we rightpondians do very much the same, it's just that our governments in their infinite wisdom have decided that there should be no such competition for new books in the local (!) language only. (There is for English books, e.g.) So, the publisher gets to set a minimum price and all sellers need to abide by that (with very few exceptions for damaged books, going-out-of-business sales and the like). This is why Amazon always throws in free shipping on books in Germany: they can't compete on price with the brick-and-mortar stores (mustn't undersell them), so they need to offer more convenience (and a bigger selection, obviously).
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... this looks like price-fixing to us
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It is, of course. It's just funny how a supposedly total free-market approach leads to the same results (not for long, one can hope).