Quote:
Originally Posted by Halk
That by definition is price fixing. What matters though is if it comes down legally as price fixing, and I don't know the answer to that.
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I suspect the original agreements were set up when steam ships were the only option for getting goods across the oceans, and the issue of prices in different continents were pretty much irrelevant. It made sense to have one publisher in America and another in the UK because you couldn't just air freight a book overnight. Nothing at all to do with price fixing, just trying to provide goods to local markets - and at prices appropriate to those markets. have you checked the price of a novel in India?
Now that global trade has changed the cost of producing goods half way around the world, the agreements and laws look out of date. But they still don't equate to price fixing, just the continuation of business as normal. The same applies to most consumer electronics, which mysteriously ignore exchange rates when it comes to pricing in Europe and America.
Now that the internet allows consumers to trade internationally, these differences are slowly eroding, but unless we all start earning equivalent wages, and the cost of living becomes the same worldwide, goods are going to continue to be priced locally for a long time.