[zeb]

Originally Posted by SameOldStory

Gudy, zeb, thank you.

You're welcome.

The part about the author getting paid the same, whatever the sale price, is moot. The publisher will be disinclined to lower the price because they'll lose more (proportionally) the lower the price gets.

I think this law proposal (as I said before, the text has not been finalised and could be dropped during the "legislation" procedure) concerns the price fixing that editors benefit in all the country. Initially, this regulation was made to protect small bookshops from the price dumping of supermarkets (which could only offer a 5% discount for new titles) and was concerning paper books only. Now that the format is more and more shifting to electronic formats, they want to make the regulation similar, and at the same time try to protect the authors. It is not that a bad thing: some music performers in France and other countries did not receive royalties for mp3 or digital sales despite they had a contract for selling their music on CD. Some publishers were taking advantage of the format shifting to really scam them, pretexting their contract was only valid for physical supports! You'll say this is not surprising from RIAA and other **AA
Such regulation on book prices also exists in the UK for instance. I do not know for other countries in Europe. Furthermore, these regulations have to conform to the EU rights. That is why this law coul take a while before it is voted.

But Harry's answer begs the question - Are the libraries more numerous and/or better stocked, in Europe, due to a higher demand brought on by the disinclination to buy high priced books? I can just see the return to the times when a well stocked personal library indicated great wealth.

The point being that if I were an average child in France, would I be able to buy a book? Would I even bother to read if a library wasn't nearby?

In the US, it seems that there is a cultural prohibition on reading and education. There was even a thread on MR about whether or not there was a stigma associated with reading in public.

I lived near Paris when I was a kid, and our local library was ok. Some parisian libraries that are close to universities are fantastic and extremely well stocked and also keep old and rare books. Books have always been quite expensive, so it was a good source of literature. But my parents and myself have always been into reading, so we also bought a lot of books anyway. I think that is a cultural thing, like in the US. Except that in the US you got colour TV and plenty of channels before the French ! Maybe that explains a lot.

Europe appears to be attempting to stop changes to the status quo re. publishers and small book stores. Is this not harmful to the public interests?

Possibly, but in the UK where there is less regulation to protect small shops or resellers, supermarkets have replaced many shops. Just in Oxford, Tesco have opened two new store in the centre of the city, and ironically one of these shops has replaced a Borders. Knowing that this big supermarkets can easily dump or fix prices, it is not very good too.