Quote:
Originally Posted by jehane
This is the biggest issue for me. At present the parallel import laws dictate that print books can only be imported by retailers when local publishers have declined to publish. This protects the local publishing industry at the expense of local book retailers, since customers can buy directly from overseas retailers with no impediment. However ebooks cannot be imported at all, so if there is no local publishing contract for the ebook, it's not available. I read a lot of midlist SF/F which is simply not available in ebook in Australia.
|
While books can be parallel imported into NZ, both commercially and privately, as far as I can see it has not had much effect on the pricing of books in physical shops but has made a big difference for online purchases through local and overseas web sellers. Physical shops complain that the cost of books to them from the publishers can be higher than the retail price being offered by parallel importers (parallel imports have to be, of course, legitimate copies) so it would seem that it may be the publishers who are being inflexible.
It has, I think, meant though that books get released here much more quickly and more of them too, than used to be the case long ago when rights holders had strict control. It may also account for the fact that the likes of Kobo discount vouchers, for example, can be applied to a far greater range of publishers' books than in Australia??
Movies are the only thing here, as far as I know, that have a restriction on their commercial (private is not controlled) parallel importing in that they may not be commercially parallel imported until 9 months after the date of first release wherever in the world that first release was. That was imposed in the early 2000s, prior to that there was no restraint and so the change was a step backwards; but the net effect of parallel importing before and after that date is that movies get released here much more quickly than they used to be back in the dark ages of total control by rights holders.