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He completely misses the point. What France does here, really, is apply the existing legislation concerning fixed book prices to ebooks (no surprise there, most European countries do the same), and what's more, to ebooks that are sold to French consumers from outside of France. The latter is a bit more contentious, perhaps. It could mean that Amazon.com (or Amazon.ca, for that matter) would have to charge prices fixed by French publishers, at least for editions meant for the French market.
What does it all mean? The publisher (or author, in the absence of one) gets to set a price and nobody must sell below that (only it's the law and not a collusion by the Big Six). It's been working like this for ages; there is no price-based competition on the European book markets (which is why Amazon routinely throws in free shipping. It's the only way they can compete with the brick-and-mortar stores on price).
This does not mean that there won't be €0.99 novellettes, just that nobody must sell them for €0.79 if they author doesn't want them to.
Is it anti-competitive? Yes, decidedly and purposefully so, for better or worse, but far from revolutionary.
Last edited by rogue_librarian; 05-04-2011 at 07:51 AM.
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