We'll see how it works out. So far it's mostly been working (for Germany at least): the publisher sets a MSRP (well, I say "suggested", but "prescribed" would be more like it, really) and that's that. But of course it doesn't apply to, say, Amazon or other international sellers. (We've had something like this with pbooks as well. Books were exported to Hungary, I think it was, and sold from there back to consumers in Germany. Didn't have much of an impact.)
So you can often buy the same German book at a discount at Amazon.com whereas Amazon.de (along with the rest of the German competition) is obligated to charge full price. This might not pay off for pbooks (think warehousing, shipping etc.), but ebooks are a real game-changer here.
To me it seems as though the French are merely trying to close that gap, i.e. also target booksellers outside of France selling to French buyers. It certainly raises a few... interesting legal questions.
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Originally Posted by HarryT
It's certainly not unenforceable; it is enforced, and has been for decades. Most European countries have fixed price book agreements in place.
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I'm not sure how well it will work for books without, say, an ISBN, or without a big publisher behind them to publish their quarterly lists.