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A cautionary tale…
Where’s the book buyer’s voice in the book debate?
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Yesterday we got the entire front page of The Australian plus another whole broadsheet page inside filled with an hysterical one-sided attack on the decision to retain the PIR. In Crikey we got an editorial and a nearly incomprehensible rant. Earlier in the week we had Bernard Keane and Guy Rundle joining the chorus for all the wrong or muddled reasons. The noise from all this is like a crippling bout of tinnitus. Irritatingly loud but so hard to discern much sense. On the one hand we have all the usual suspects of Murdochian neo-conservative champions of “free market” capitalism joining with unlikely cheerleaders such as Allan Fels and Bob Carr. It should matter that the former, in his role in the ACCC, left us with the world’s most extreme concentration of retailing power in groceries, petrol, banking, etc, and the latter, after a decade in power left Sydney in a worse state vis a vis functional infrastructure. All of the above are heavily vested in the argument, either from the political/ideological side (The Australian) or the industry (Dymocks, Carr, Woolies, Coles) or as working authors (Keane and Rundle, very strange bedfellows with the above lot, but both have softened their original hardline anti-PIR positions). I have written on the PIR (here and here) but am neither an author (not counting 100 scientific publications) or in the industry, being a mere book buyer. Despite the thousands of words written on it this week I still feel there is the need for clarity, so here goes. (1) Internet bookshops. This is an utter distraction and has no bearing on the argument about whether to retain the PIR or not. Amazon is the biggest book retailer in the world and no one can effectively compete with them (as some bloggers have commented it seems highly likely that wannabe competitors like BookDepository are unsustainable). Not American bookshops and therefore certainly not Australian bookshops. Anyone who believes that removing the PIR would suddenly make Australian bookshops competitive with Amazon, or just “more competitive” is either a fool or a knave. What exactly was The Australian trying to prove by comparing Dymocks prices with Amazon when it should have been comparing the US RRP (or even Dymocks Hong Kong as I did.) How would removing the PIR help except as in point four below. And incidentally why on earth are Amazon purchases exempt the GST? Plenty of American states impose a state sales tax on Amazon purchases and France imposes a 5.5% TVA. Logically Australia should, too, and the free marketeers should support this on the basis of level playing field etc. (2) E-books. Ditto. Utterly irrelevant to the argument, even if the statements about them being the death of printed books within the decade may come true. So what? Let’s pre-emptively destroy our local publishing industry before e-books do? (3) Copyright territoriality. Abolishing the PIR abolishes this. Australia would be removing it unilaterally while the UK and the USA have absolutely no intention of removing theirs. As bloggers have shown, Rundle’s argument about Eire and earlier ones about New Zealand actually demonstrate the opposite: i.e. the loss of any publishing industry in countries that remove all restrictions. (4) Dumping of remaindered copies. First, it is hard to believe after the thousands of words written on this but there are still readers who do not understand that authors (a) do not earn a anything from remaindered books (mostly from large print runs in the US & UK) and (b) have no choice in their contracts about this. This week Rundle mentioned:
and that
Well, yes, finally Guy puts a valid point that he essentially ignored previously but which was the main point by the likes of me and others and most authors. As the PIR supporters said, there was never any mechanism proposed by the PC or the likes of Dymocks to prevent this authorial “theft” via dumping. Indeed Dymocks, not to mention News Corp (one of the largest book publishers in the world) almost certainly planned to try to profit from it and to hell with the Australian authors, publishers and independent bookshops (see my article that shows Dymocks is hardly ever the cheapest and their Hong Kong stores — no GST, no restrictions — are only marginally better). (5) Cheaper books in Australia. First the PC report, contrary to much commentary, did not unambiguously establish consistently higher prices in Australia compared to other markets — it is complicated by many factors. As noted above the comparison with online retailers is not the valid comparison. Second, I do not believe anyone on either side of the argument, including Allan Fels or Bob Carr and especially Don Grover (CEO, Dymocks) believes that removal of the PIR would result in cheaper books, unless you allowed point four. With the main promoters being Dymocks, Woolies, Coles and K-Mart, what more do you need to know? Carr talks about getting cheaper books for underpriviledged kids. He should donate his board fees and get Dymocks to set up a subsidy scheme. Speaking of subsidies: (6) Government subsidy of authors. Is there really any need to formally dismiss this one? Keane and Rundle, who are among the most independent, fearless and hard-working Australian journos, seem to support such schemes. I am dumbstruck. Is Keane serious that the public or potential authors should lament that Craig Emerson killed a proposed author subsidy scheme? Is he seriously saying that this would substitute for an Australian publishing industry? None of this is to say that some reform may not be needed in the book industry. Some of the more outrageous cost differences in many books (see second table here) have nothing to do with the PIR. This, and the related problem of poor availability of older or less popular books, may be traced to wholesalers or middlemen who book retailers are forced to deal with. Talk with your friendly independent bookshop and they will gripe about it. But the PC did not consider such matters. And the big chains, such as Dymocks’s Grover and Bob Carr never mention it. Funny that. |
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62 Comments
“Amazon is the biggest book retailer in the world and no one can effectively compete with them (as some bloggers have commented it seems highly likely that wannabe competitors like BookDepository are unsustainable).”
Try betterworld books or abebooks. They are both online booksellers that sell internationally. I buy There is no reason to believe they are unsustainable as both have been operating successfully for several years. I am not sure about bookdepository. I buy about 100 books per year and with each book, I check those three websites for the cheapest price for cost plus shipping and it is far from being always Amazon. I would venture to say that there is no such thing as a business with which no one can compete, although I suppose Microsoft comes close.
AbeBooks is owned by Amazon…
Internet bookshops are not irrelevant, they are selling into the same limited marketplace and competing for the same buyers, I can’t even understand why I should need to point this out.
Ebooks are not irrelevant for the same reasons. It’s unlikely that I’m going to buy two licences to read a given book, so if I buy a ebook licence, I am not buying a dead-tree one.
No, the removal of PIR is unlikely to make books cheaper, what it may do is make books more available. And I’d like that.
Jillian (3.03pm). I don’t really disagree, except for my caveat “in the long run”. I compare BookDepository, Amazon and Fishpond and of course local stores. No single site is dominant and I guess I buy equally across all three. I don’t have a fixed threshold but generally if online is only $5 or less than local, I buy local. Obviously I also buy local when I get those loyalty coupons.
But, while one can see Amazon’s consistency over time and across all their catalogue, BD just seems too low to be real sometimes. Especially without postage charge to Oz. I have done no research but I am guessing they are still loss-leading to build scale and market, however Amazon will outlast them. (Unless some buyers simply buy everything from them including the much more expensive books?)
The other caveat about Amazon that I have said previously, is that I think they will be subject to an anti-trust case one of these days. But their share of all retail is actually not so high and by the time it is, like Microsoft, they might be too big for it to matter.
Thanks Quinch. I didn’t know that until now. The website says “AbeBooks Inc. is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. AbeBooks, an online bookselling pioneer, was acquired in December 2008 and remains a stand-alone operation with headquarters in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and a European office in Dusseldorf, Germany.” Abebooks was a competitor of Amazon until the takeover in December 2008. Betterworld is still a competitor of Amazon.
Michael, I agree that Book Depository is probably not sustainable, although I have not looked at it in detail. I have spent many hours checking prices on the other sites mentioned above.
Thanks for the great article.
As an avid consumer of books, I have been looking at the debate with a bit of bemusement, because as you rightly pointed out the pricing of books in Australia has everything to do with distributers and middlemen.
That is the reason why basically any consumer good in Australia is ridiculously priced. For example my husband found a fantastic local retailer (equivalent to the independent bookshop) that specialises in audio software and hardware and really wanted to buy a particular software from them, but the price compared to the States, especially with the Australian dollar sitting at or near parity again meant that the price blowout was in the hundreds of dollars. When my husband asked if they could give him a better price they tried to cut off but said most of the price hike was from the distributor, which meant inevitably that my husband bought the software from the US because at the end of the day even though you want to support local independent retailers you can’t at any cost to yourself financially.
So we will keep buying basically all our consumer goods online: books, cd’s, dvd’s, software, etc. because if you have a Paypal account or credit card it just isn’t worth it.
Shopping in Australia = Overpriced, Outdated, Limited Selection
As a book buyer - not author, book seller, distributor - it is not always about price. I want choice. Breadth of choice - range! That includes locally relevant publications, books by Australians, or about Australian affairs, or Aussie humour, or Australian tastes and palates. I do want to see Australian authors works prominent and alongside the world heavyweights.
Value is more than price, it is also about quality, which also means that there has to be a viable market that makes investing in that quality worthwhile. The authors do have to get a fiar return. So yes I do want the Indies to not just survive, but prosper. I only want to have to resort to Amazon and web vendors when I cannot access hard copy from quality bookstores in my local area, or book order via bookstore is too slow. The comments about copyright protection are valid - US and UK are firm on keeping their copyrights in place - and we should protect ours.
As a buyer, a consumer, what I do not want is the vanilla bulk book warehouse model, with vast arrays of same old, same old, bulk editions and remaindered stocks, many for US or British or Euro markets - in overseas travels we have to endure this all too often - and unfortunately we are seeing more of this in Australia. That’s not to say there is no place for remaindered warehouses and discount book barns - there is a valid place for them in our retail market, but that should not be the norm.
Dymocks, Borders etc, yes I do use them, plus the Indies. The viability of independent bookshops, many of which have themes and specialisations, is very important to me as buyer. Woolies and K Mart or Target rarely. A&R no, gone down the vanilla route in my opinion and as described in other articles, quite expensive.
BTW when in Amazon.com you cannot see or browse the book, smell the paper, the atmosphere…
Choice, range, quality, value. Not just price. Indies and Aussies, not just more Dan b***** Brown, Political biographies and Yankee cookbooks!
“…There has to be a viable market that makes investing in that quality worthwhile….”
Drew, it doesn’t make sense to say “there has to be a market”. We either have free markets or we don’t. In this instance, it seems we don’t.
My intent was to emphasise our ability to access a viable [local] market with good quality, and range. I was not advocating a particular economic solution. The so-called free market [actually dominated by “gorillas”] could reduce quality and choice - and I want to choose from more than vanilla. Yes the current market is not quite “free”. Yes my interpretation of the term quality includes quality of presentation, and content, and Australian relevance. I was commenting as a buyer, a consumer, not from a politico-economic position. Hence my closing emphasis - choice, range, quality, value.
Yes, I am enjoying the debate and thinking about the differing points of view.
The current scenario is that books in Australia are ridiculously overpriced. The solution for most people who buy books is to buy them online from overseas. The local industry is more likely to collapse as a result of the ridiculous prices than as a result of removing import restrictions.
Meski: “Internet bookshops are not irrelevant, they are selling into the same limited marketplace and competing for the same buyers, I can’t even understand why I should need to point this out.”
Amazon, or any other online shop, is for people who know what book or author they want. If you’re just looking for something to read, only a bookshop brings you a showroom where you can browse the different sections and read and see what turns up.
Yes, Amazon has come a long way in online browsing. Not the same though. And a good bookshop operator has a knack for choosing the good stuff so you don’t have to search through millions of titles to find something that grabs you.
If it weren’t for bookshops, I never would have even discovered any of my favourite authors, never would have got frustrated when it took six months for their new titles to come to Aus (in a stupid, oversize, overpriced, poor-quality hardback format), never would have got fed up waiting another year for the paperback … never would have even looked at this Amazon everyone was talking about.
I almost never buy print books any more. I’ve been reading ebooks on my phone for over 3 years, and my wife who likes high-quality literary fiction ditto.
One thing that drives me crazy is the geographical restriction placed on so many ebooks. AFAIK, there is no Aussie ebook seller that can offer me these books.
A good example is the new Anita Shreve book “A Change in Altitude”. I would never buy the print edition and I would buy the ebook edition regardless of price.
Fictionwise explain the restriction thus:
“Fewer than ten percent of our titles are restricted in any way. In most cases the restrictions are for European countries or Australia, but in some cases the restrictions can be quite complicated and affect many different regions. The eBook’s description page will list any restrictions.
Why do publishers make these kinds of restrictions? Don’t they want to sell eBooks?
The paper book business has always had the notion of being able to sell the rights of a particular book to different publishers by geographic region. Although we would tend to agree that this notion is outdated in the world of the Internet and eBooks, the fact is those contracts are still in force. If publishers do not take steps to ensure their eBook sales are adhering to the terms of those contracts, they are subject to legal action from whatever other publisher has licensed the rights to the eBook in other countries. Effectively, the publisher’s hands are tied. As such, they require us to enforce these restrictions. If we did not obey the publisher’s wishes, the publisher would withdraw the eBooks from sale on our web site for all customers.”
I assume the PIR responsible for this. What can I do about it?
James,
“Amazon, or any other online shop, is for people who know what book or author they want. If you’re just looking for something to read, only a bookshop brings you a showroom where you can browse the different sections and read and see what turns up.”
It’s interesting that you say that because I have spent many hours using Amazon’s automated recommendations tool and I love it - being presented with a list of 1000 books based on previous purchases and being able to add them to a wishlist or tick ‘not interested’; then being presented with another 1000 based on responses to the previous 1000 and onwards - it’s never-ending.
Michael,
“One thing that drives me crazy is the geographical restriction placed on so many ebooks.”
Agreed. I have recently bought an Amazon kindle and found that only a quarter of the books on my wishlist are available to Australian customers in that format. In a previous Crikey thread on the topic of books, someone said that the law relating to physical books and the law relating to e-books are totally separate - two different sets of restrictions. Considering that if you buy a kindle as an Australian, you pay the same purchase price as Americans, I think you should be entitled to buy the same books - but it’s another one of these bizarre sets of laws. I can’t see how it can benefit anyone to make a book completely unavailable to a certain set of customers in a certain format. I still love the Amazon kindle though - it’s a great tool.
Jillian, yeah I know you can do that. To me there just seems like (don’t take offence anybody) something sheep-like about doing so. Call me a dinosaur, I like to wander around the shelves and spot something that’s completely outside my usual reading material, something I would never think to look for online. That can only work if the collection I’m browsing is of a manageable size. That finite size usually means a standard Dymocks of the usual bestsellers, but in a healthy bookshop industry there are some shops with real individuality. They get harder to find every year.
Yes, the Amazon recommendations is a linear process of moving from what you have read previously on to related books. It doesn’t throw up anything totally different. It’s good if you have non-fiction interests like say subprime lending. Some US books on that topic are not readily available in Australia.
Berkelouws is good for finding something different. It’s a small chain in and around Sydney.
‘hysterical one-sided attack’…’nearly incomprehensible rant’…’crippling bout of tinnitus’…’world’s most extreme concentration of’…’utter distraction’…’utterly irrelevant’…
A hyperbolic attack of the vapors posing as disinterested analysis, Michael. To suggest that things like eBooks, Amazon prices, the need for contractual evolution and the multiple options for revamping direct subsidy were all irrelevant to this debate betrays how little you care about the industry and its future. One long, reactive, shut-your-eyes-block-your-ears tanty.
I set out in very clear detail how the local industry can - does, is, will continue to - protect itself against ‘dumping’, above and beyond any (nominal) PIR protection. Neither you or Guy have actually answered any of them - redolent of the pomposity of the publishing industry in this debate: make all sorts of over-reaching claims, and then retreat into lofty imperious silence when challenged on the details. In fact, my hunch - we’ll never know, now - is that PIR’s play a pretty insignificant role in stopping ‘floods of cheap, cannibalising imports’. It’s more about the distances, the marketing and mercantile difficulties, the market resistance, the reluctance of local outlets to collude in the practice…the way your lot’s carried on about this threat - putting the anti-boat people screechers to shame, at times - anyone would think there’s a fleet of supertankers loaded to the gunwhales with surplus US Wintons hoved to just over the horizon, engines idling, waiting for the green light. I suspect the dumping bogeyman is a might furphy, partly driven by the delusions of writers who’ve had a book crash and burn overseas, wish-thinking that they need to citadel their still ‘live’ local market against sales cannibalisation - but as much about protecting their local reputations (and fragile egos) against what ought to be the natural feedback signals of mercantile - that is, writerly - failure. Remainders - surplus copies of any kind - are the not-so-little bad smells of the well-to-do publishing industry. Those responsible for their production want to remain free to fart them out at will, then walk away from them, disown them, at no long-term cost. That ‘10 salmon-up-a-stream’ analogy of Guy’s is telling in its haughty business model exceptionalism, its environmental arrogance and sense of resource entitlement. Imagine any other industry with perfectly workable alternatives - like eBooks, like print-on-demand, like subscription publishing - to the built-in, sustained strategic oversupply of its traditional business model simply refusing, point blank, to countenance any reform process to phase those alternatives in! Most industries contemplating reforms whose multiple ‘pros’ might just save its bacon in the long run, and who can only come up with the ‘con’ of potential exposure to local market dumping of excess product, might, um, y’know, memo itself to deal with that ‘con’ by, um…undertaking (at last!) not to produce that excess product anymore. There’s just no excuse for remainders, anymore. Certainly not in quantities of the magnitude needed to render the pro-PIR ‘dumping’ argument remotely valid.
But anyway, none of this matters much. You guys won. Your arguments carried the day with the people who count, so presumably there’s no longer any need for the level of intensity, anxiety, hyperbole, imperiousness you embrace here, Michael. It was a fine lobbying effort, if nothing else, and testament to the power of determined, pragmatic democratic engagement. As Rundle says, we’ve hardly sold Queensland to China. If this is the biggest policy disaster Rudd’s government ever oversees, it’ll be doing well. As for lucky old me, being the one who got rolled…well, Michael, I think I’m entitled to go on ranting incomprehensibly! Small consolations, and all that. I do think the industry will come to bitterly regret this passed window of opportunity.
“But anyway, none of this matters much. You guys won. Your arguments carried the day with the people who count, so presumably there’s no longer any need for the level of intensity, anxiety, hyperbole, imperiousness you embrace here…I do think the industry will come to bitterly regret this passed window of opportunity.”
I don’t think their victory will last long. The internet has changed the game. People can bypass whatever is going on here and buy from overseas. They cannot force people to pay whatever prices they think are appropriate.
If you’re buying single copies of ebooks for your own use, the PIRs aren’t relevant. Under the present legislation, individual readers can parallel import books from any source they like; the restrictions only apply to books imported in quantity for resale. It may well be illegal for publishers to restrict supply by threatening to boycott online retailers who offer individual copies of ebooks (or physical books) for which they hold Australian rights. Not sure whether you could do anything about it from here, but I imagine the ACCC might be interested, as it’s the kind of behaviour the Trade Practices Act was set up to discourage.
Incompatible/unreadable/unavailable ebook formats are a different question, but that problem is partly to do with Amazon choosing an oddball proprietary format for the Kindle.
Jenny, that would be great if the limitation of sale of ebooks to Australian customers using the Amazon kindle could be removed. I have submitted an online enquiry to the ACCC. When I get a reply, I will post it here on this thread.
“I have recently purchased an Amazon kindle (the electronic reader available from amazon.com).
Using a sample of about 90 books, I found that only 25% of them are available to Australian customers.
I do not understand the law in this area, but a friend of mine suggested that it may well be illegal for publishers to restrict supply by threatening to boycott online retailers who offer individual copies of ebooks for which they hold Australian rights. She said that the ACCC might be interested, as it’s the kind of behaviour the Trade Practices Act was set up to discourage.
I do not believe it is Amazon causing the restrictions - it is their attempt to follow their understanding of Australian law.
Could you please check on this for me and respond by e-mail or letter?”
Jack’s right, the remainder-dumping angle was (to continue the fish metaphor) a red herring. Just a cut-loss measure without which publishers would be reluctant to take a punt on an unknown writer.
No James, Jack is still an ass. Remainders are a write-off for publishers, since they traditionally have a ‘sell or return’ arrangement with retailers. Publishers carry ALL the risk, and the retailers only pay for what they sell, hence ‘remainders’. Which is why authors only get royalties on what is actually sold.
What so few here seem to realise, is that publishers carry ALL the risk of investing in authors, editing their work, printing, distributing it, marketing it, and finally, if the books don’t sell, either pulping them or shunting them off to remainder merchants. Name any other industry that operates like that!
Read the article above again, it’s got more common sense and relevant facts than anything I’ve read on this issue anywhere.(Fels and Carr? Oh, spare me!)
There’s precious little understanding of what Australian publishers actually do, and lots of ignorant and nasty invective being dished out by a few poor souls who seem to be carrying a lot of emotional baggage.
And by the way Jack, don’t fall off that soapbox will you mate? I mean, it’s a looooong way down!
“What so few here seem to realise, is that publishers carry ALL the risk of investing in authors, editing their work, printing, distributing it, marketing it, and finally, if the books don’t sell, either pulping them or shunting them off to remainder merchants. Name any other industry that operates like that!”
Manufacturing companies do most of that. I can’t see the difference.
JB, what industry manufactures a product, ‘sells’ it to retailers, then ‘takes it back’ when the retailer can’t shift it?
If you “can’t see the difference” then you really should go and get an education about how business works in the real world.
Imagine farmers taking back the produce retailers couldn’t sell and refunding the money they originally sold it for! This is exactly what publishers do.
“Manufacturing companies do most of that”?
No JB, they actually do not. They invoice the wholesaler or retailer and it’s these buyers who take the risk that the product(s) won’t sell. This is how the rest of the world works, and it’s so fundamental to the discussion of publishing in this country that it needs to pointed out.
If you are so ignorant of such a basic fact as this then it really puts your ‘opinions’ into perspective, doesn’t it?
Christopher,
Take the US car industry. I got this from an internet site, but if I put up the link, this comment will go into moderation. Look at the level of involvement of the manufacturers described here. Franchised retail, wholesalers being linked to the manufacturer and many sales being made to rental agencies with guaranteed buybacks.
“Generally, automobile manufacturers maintain a network of franchised retail dealers who sell to the public and provide customer support and service. To maintain a unified corporate presence, the manufacturers also establish separate wholesale sales offices that set and monitor dealer sales practices, advertising and marketing campaigns, and retail pricing ranges. Because these transactions are internal to the corporate entities and regarded as proprietary in nature, little specific information is available.
Many sales are made to franchised dealers, but the manufacturers’ sales offices also sell to fleet purchaser and rental agencies with guaranteed buy-backs after three to six months.”
Or the huge risk taken by pharmaceutical companies to develop the technology for their products, which then have to be approved by the government before anything can be sold. I would say this is bigger than the risk taken by distributors or retailers.
But, JB, the publishers do not ‘own’ or ‘franchise’ the bookstores. This difference is pretty fundamental to the discussion. The US car industry is not analogous to the position of Australian publishers. It would be, if you had single publisher franchised bookstores, but no one would consider this a viable retail model ie only stocking one publishers list.
Regulation of pharmaceuticals, also, has no bearing on the matter either. If a drug company, on top of the huge development and regulatory costs also had to have a ‘sale or return’ policy, they would go broke. Instead, they spend vast fortunes marketing their wares, and once the wholesaler buys it, they ‘own’ it, and the risk is then theirs.
But not in the book industry. Sorry, but all you’ve shown, (again), is that you do not understand the industry’s structure, and what risk is involved to publishers but not retailers.
You are not, (sadly), alone, judging from the ‘quality’ of most of the comments I’ve seen on this subject.
I think the risk is just at a different point in the process.
For pharmaceutical companies, the risk is mainly upfront, with the development and government approval costs. Same with software development.
For publishers, the risk is mainly at the other end of the process - the possibility of the books not selling and having to be bought back from retailers.
For banks that securitise their loans, if a loan goes bad, then that affects the continued funding they can get as part of the securitisation deal - and so they are taking risks associated with something they have onsold.
“For pharmaceutical companies, the risk is mainly upfront, with the development and government approval costs. Same with software development.”
And once again, they either have patent or copyright protections, but publishers should not???
And, once again, your argument is fuzzy and confused. The businesses you mentioned all ‘take risks’, yes, as do publishers when they take on an unknown or little known author. They make a choice based on their assessment of the quality of the writing and their knowledge of the market and current fashion. They stump up the capital to bring a book to print, pay an advance to the author, print and distribute and market the end product.
BUT, on top of all that, they can’t just ‘sell’ the books and walk away, they must also bear the cost of those books which do not sell in the retail market. The point JB, is that the booksellers bear NO capital risk. They get to keep the profit, but pass the losses back to the publisher.
Drug companies, software companies, clothing companies and any others you care to name do not operate this way. Yes, they take commercial risks, but once they sell their product(s), they aren’t obliged to take them back if the buyer can’t on sell them. Try and imagine your local chemist asking for a refund because their stock of Brand X did not sell!
You really don’t grasp the basic difference…and yet it’s fundamental to the discussion.
Yes, I do understand that there is a risk at the end of the process, after selling to retailers. I think my bank example is more similar to that than the pharmaceutical companies - in that banks still have a risk after on-selling loans.
But due to this relatively unusual risk, the industry is entitled to government-enforced import restrictions? That requires the government to make a value judgement that the industry requires special protection rather than letting the market decide. If Australian buyers want to pay high prices to keep the industry up and running as it is, then they can do that, but should they be forced? Maybe Australians are prepared to take the risk that the Australian publishing industry will collapse?
I had a good laugh about your claim that banks took risks securitising loans!
We’ve just witnessed a global collapse of financial systems simply because US banks (mostly) made lousy loans, then bundled them, and passed them on to suckers! They shoved the risks onto unsuspecting pension and super funds and anyone else thinking they were getting a good return on a ‘safe’ asset.
Your grasp of basics isn’t good, is it?
“But due to this relatively unusual risk, the industry is entitled to government-enforced import restrictions?”
No, but they’d like to have enforceable patents or copyright just like drug companies and software companies you mentioned.
As for “special protection”…once again, look at the US and UK, and then tell me it’s somehow “special protection”!
As for the argument that Australians always pay ‘high prices’, well, read the article above again, and realise that it’s much more complex than you suggest. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Are we going to talk about books as if they were just widgets, or are we going to put a value on Australian writing?
These are really complex issues, but until you’ve got even a rudimentary understanding of the actual business of publishing in Australia it’s impossible to even start an intelligent discussion.
But Christopher, that’s the point. In the US, the risk was split between the banks and the end purchasers of the securitised products. Both experienced losses, not just the end purchasers. The securitisation process does not remove all risks for banks.
I know the US & UK have protection of their publishing industries, but they each have a much larger domestic market and so the prices are not so high.
The special protection I was describing was the level of import restrictions compared to other Australian industries.
Yes, we are going to put a value on Australian writing because customers are paying for it.
If banks passed on all risk, why did some banks collapse?
Christopher, you can insult the customers of the industry that you support and maybe work for and ask ‘are we going to put a value on Australian writing?’, ie does price matter?, but at the end of the day, the publishing industry depends on its customers. Even import restrictions do not change that.
The US banks (read ‘casinos’) took a hit on their CDS exposures (Credit Default Swaps), while they passed off the CDO’s (Collateralised debt obligations) to institutions which took massive loses when US housing went south. It was the biggest ‘pass the parcel’ scheme ever invented, and made Bernie Madoff look like a boy scout.
Sorry, but I really don’t have the time nor the inclination to acquaint you with the differences.
I don’t ‘insult the customers’ of bookstores by the way, and yes, price does matter, but the price of what, exactly? Sludge that bookselling chains can scrounge a few bucks more from, or books Australians produce and other Australians want to read?
Like I said, these are really complex issues, and you’d best acquaint yourself with the basics of the Australian publishing industry first.
The distinction between the two lots of derivative products is not relevant anyway. It just proves the point that the banks took some risk and the purchasers of the CDOs took another form of risk. If the banks had passed on all the risk, they would not have needed to have an exposure to credit default swaps.
You do insult the customers of bookstores. Jack, James and me.
“Sludge that bookselling chains can scrounge a few bucks more from, or books Australians produce and other Australians want to read?”
So, it’s sludge if it’s from overseas, but not if it’s produced in Australia?
As a customer, I know as much as I need to know about the Australian publishing industry. The days of protection deals between industry and government are by and large gone, as Jack has said. The end customer is considered as well these days, without being required to be an expert on each industry.
Whatever you want to believe JB
Ironically, it’s very difficult to get books on subprime lending in Australia because of these import restrictions. If you want to buy them, you generally have to buy online from overseas.
Taking a different angle, one option would be to change the arrangement where the publisher has to buy back the unsold books from retailers. If that is the root cause of the push for import restrictions, then maybe it could be changed.
I don’t know what the logistics of the option suggested above would be - would it require a change of legislation? or is it all based on long-term contracts?
Christopher, I think you would get more support for your cause if you stopped insulting people. As soon as you went away and stopped insulting me, I thought of a better possibility. (Whether it’s feasible, I’m not sure - that’s another question.)
Christopher, the book retailer is largely forgotten in policies designed to protect the publisher. I don’t know anything about how Australian publishing works, except to say their arty-farty cover designs usually put me off an Australian title before I’ve even picked it up off the shelf.
I would venture to say that we’re extremely poorly served by the British publishers who carved up the world between themselves and the Americans years ago, in much the same way that Pope Alexander VI divided the world between the Catholic colonists. This anachronism has led to Australia being monopolised by a colonist that sends only a few safe leaders over this way. Any non-leader titles that subsequently take of in Northern hemisphere sales, get here many months later, if at all, and usually at a time when the public discussion about those books has died down. So Australia misses out on those discussions. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m not aware of much action by Australian publishers on that front.
But as I said, I’m not conversant in the Australian publishing industry. I’m just a consumer who sees us being treated as a barely literate colony, though the studies I’ve heard of have found we are more literate, and have more diverse reading habits, than the UK.
That’s not related directly to PIR (or is it? again I don’t know) but extrapolation from experiences in other industries tells me that the more government f***s with an industry, the more things break down.
I rely on the Productivity Commission for analysis of things like this. And I find that both governments have made a routine practice of totally ignoring that body since it was created. Just as they typically ignore all independent expert bodies which have expertise but no lobbying clout. That’s why your side won, and this debate is now in the realm of the purely academic.
I’ve talked about two different things there without bridging them properly.
What I mean to say is, anything that nourishes the bookshop sector will tend to foster more individualisation away from the generic Wal-Mart type of crap like Dymocks. Not just the specialty ones but the general ones with a quirky style and taste, such as Gleebooks. And my guess is that good business in those retail outlets will do more for Australian authors than any protection of the publishing houses could ever do.
Well, call me ignorant but I haven’t read a book in maybe 3 years, yet I have circles under my eyes from so much reading. I have maybe 40 books on my shelf I want to read but can’t get time for. But I do forensically watch movies and press and otherwise material on the web. On a road trip next week chances are I will listen to a talking book - Le Carre perhaps out of the local library.
Is this a pre web 2.0 generation issue? And digital natives basically don’t give a proverbial?
Well Tom, what I see in bookshops is just as many people crowding in and browsing as I ever saw in the years before the ‘net. But these days, a lot more people are walking out without buying anything, having written down notes about the books they found, which they then go home and buy online for half the price. To that extent, the online sellers are parasites of the traditional retail sector. The only solution to this is to clear away all obstacles that prevent the bookshops from competing on price.
Well I say the “only solution”, the government appears to have taken the view that bookshops are an anachronism and the literature industry no longer needs them. But as I argued earlier (Friday 10:14pm, NSW time) bookshops introduce people to new material outside what they’re familiar with. Word of mouth takes it from there. Libraries do that too. Online shopping does not; without other realms of exposure to books, online browsing just makes it easier for people to glut themselves within their zones of familiarity.
Tom, in response to the question of whether this is a pre web 2.0 generation issue, I would imagine that most people on here are of pre web 2.0 generations. I’m 32 years old, which makes me Gen X. I didn’t learn to use a computer properly until age 18. Even though I love this website and the internet in general, I’m glad I am not from a younger generation. I suspect they don’t read books much.
Oh, I get it. When the pro-PIR lobby parrots on about the ‘exciting new voices’ and ‘risky’ but culturally important publishing ventures that PIR-sbased subsidy…they mean Jessica Rudd’s debut novel. Which isn;t even written yet, and has her publisher Michael Heyward of Text, gushing about it. It’s about a young MP’s rise to power.
No first-time writer deserves anything less than warm wishes and congratulations. But it really better be rather good, is all. Worth chucking away x millions in direct subsidy for everyone else though the Arts Council, even, ntm Australian readers going on paying 20-30% for books in bookshops, which will likely kill the Indy bookshops off.
Fine, slag me off for being a bitter failure again, if you wish. But I think it would have been nice for Heyward and Rudd (K) to declare this upfront and publicly, too. (Be interesting to know when the deal was struck, and how much the advance.) I’m not claiming anything dodgy. No writer needs to have the thrill (presumably!) of their first book buggered up by petty accusations. Good luck to Jessica Rudd, and good on Text for giving her a go.
But it does make the PIR lobbying victory seem a bit…I dunno, a bit shabby.
Anyway, enough, at last. Jack Roberson
“about a young MP’s rise to power”? You’ve got to be s***ting me
If the publishers were worried about this loss to retailers you talk about, then they would seek to integrate retailing into their business. Rather like Amazon do, come to think of it.
Book buyer Michael R. James does not address the question:
What is the moral argument for book producers getting the government to compel buyers to pay more than they otherwise would, for even airport blockbuster trash?
I know the local content argument, that Australian authors etc might starve - but all the studies clearly indicate direct grants to them would be cheaper.
What is the moral argument.
I want to feel good every time I overpay for non local stuff like the Da vinci Code, Jeffrey Archer etc. Currently I just feel like an idiot. My government having had a gun put to its head by rent seekers, who having learned from the CD industry rent seeking failures, now locate in marginal electorates and insist on fully unionised staff so as to facilitate an extortion racket, overcharging all Australians so as to benefit mainly to non-Australians and ALP politicians.
I want to believe its harder than that to shred Mr Rudd’s claim to economic credibility. I want to believe in the credibility of the ALP of the Hawke and Keating years, where the primary test was consumer benefit to the majority. Not a rerun of the Whitlam years when the ALP shamelessly rigged the system for the benefit of a minority of insiders, until it collapsed.
If a PIR is so good, why not a PIR run by my local council to lard up the cost of all publications not printed in my council area?
Who now claims that abolishing the same kind of rent seeking that used to operate with music, has harmed any one but the former rent seekers. (CDs and DVDs). Who now claims New Zealand consumers have not benefited from the abolishment of their PIR.
With both the claimed damage never occurred - overseas rent seekers suffered, the consuming majority benefited.
’ “about a young MP’s rise to power”? You’ve got to be s***ting me ‘
Nah. The Sunday Telegraph’s Nick Leys reported it yesterday, with a pretty play-it-straight ‘we’re very proud’ PR release from Rudd, and a slightly snippy Michael Heyward (Text). S’not nline, here’s some bits:
‘…The Sunday Telegraph has learned [Rudd absenting himself from Cabinet/issue] was because Mr Rudd’s daughter is penning her debut novel, believed to be about the rise of an aspiring MP. Jessica Rudd’s first novel will be published by Text Publishing, but readers will have to wait to learn if it is a Primary Colours style book, a fictionalised account of Bill Clinton’s march to the WH, or something more esoteric. A spokeswoman for Mr Rudd said: ‘The PM is very proud of his daughter Jessica, who has decide to write a novel and has a contract with an Australian publisher.” Michael Heyward of Text confirmed Ms Rudd has a single book deal and said the book was yet to be given a publication date. “It’s a very clever, funny and compulsively readable book about a young woman who makes an unexpected career move, ” he said. “Until she has finished it, we won’t be disclosing anything more. He described Ms Rudd as ‘very talented’ with a ‘wonderful gift for words’…”’
Like I said, whatever. Good luck to her. Now I know I said I’d shut up, Crikey, but this is a mildly amusing denouement to what’s been, for me anyway, an astonishingly improbable tale of policy lunacy. So let’s sum the story up:
1. It was the banal existence of this just-revealed familial publishing deal that had PM Rudd abstaning from the Cabinet debate (and on reflection, most of the public one, too). Rudd’s made a huge deal of his economic reformist credentials since the election. Obviously he was looking for an excuse to avoid having to commit either way (Australia’s luvvies terrify a certain kind of ALP politician). Who knows for sure, but it’s strongly arguable that his participation in the debate would have seen PIR’s go, at last. Instead, he decided to ‘do the right thing’ and …abstain. Lame. And not even ‘the right thing’ at all, anyway. Because…
2. …Michael Heyward was probably THE key pro-PIR campaigner (at least among publishers). It’s not really credible that simply ‘abstaining’ here (formally so late, and for reasons undisclosed until after the decision) was sufficient. Heyward was about as partial as anyone in this debate could get, since…
3. …Text Publishing, a relative newcomer, has built a large part of its business (very quickly) on the lucrative international rights trade enabled by PIR’s. In Heyward’s own submissions, he bluntly said that without PIR’s, it’s unlikely the ‘growth’ in that trade he has enjoyed could be sustained. Rather hypocritically….
4. …Text has also - despite Heyward claiming in various articles during this campaign that his company no longer needed it - received direct subsidy money (ie from the Literature Board) anyway, in parallel with the subsidy benefits he harvests from PIR. He got, for example, $11,000 last reported FY (to travel to Frankfurt and undertake ‘international market development’). Presumably, though, any Lit Board subsidy he’s happy to take is relatively small beer compared to his PIR benefits, since…
5. …In maintaining PIR’s, while he and his pro-PIR leaders secured (and enhanced) the quasi-patronage power of the(ir) small-ish number of Houses that trade significantly in across-territory rights, Heyward & Co’s campaign simultaneously walked - on behalf of every other writer and publisher in Australia - away from a large increase in direct Lit Board money (as a ‘pool’ into which everyone has an equal chance to apply to dip). This is classic ‘special pleading’, actually: not where an entire industry conspires to gain special privileges over the wider economy, but where companies inside the same industry seek to gain privileges over competitors. (Same applies to writers: in this case, those with o/s deals have gained advantage at cost to those without, including unpublished writers, like me).
Think about that again, for a second: Publishing company X gets a specific benefit of a Cabinet decision, but only at cost of a general pooled benefit that ALL companies would have otherwise enjoyed. Don’t you think it starts to look a bit shabby that Company X just happens to publishing the PM’s daughter’s book? (Can you imagine the stink from the luvvies if it was Melanie Howard, here? Or Stan Howard, for that matter…?) Don’t underestimate the cost of this to the wider writerly/literary community pool, James. It’s only going to become apparent as future funding dies. And…
6. …Enormous numbers of Australian writers, editors and publishers depend heavily on what little bits they can get via the Lit Board. PIR-derived income for the vast majority of Australians in the literary community is….um…zero. And will continue to be…um…zero. Writers - and I mean good ones, not failed bitter ones like me, but recognised, low-selling, near-broke but culturally worthwhile writers with fine, weighty oeuvres produced over grinding decades and who’ve partially-survived on LB money in the past - will be in (the usual) real trouble.
7. Meanwhile, Australians will continue to pay 20-30% too much for books - especially those who are rural readers, older readers, or the parents of kids just starting to read, all of whom have greatly reduced capacity and time/opportunity to shop around the net, or the discounting shops, for cheap ‘spot price’ deals. I have a three-year-old…if he sees a book he wants, I can’t exactly say: ‘Let’s shop around for the cheapest version, mate.’ It doesn’t naturally work that way for most of the casual readers/buyers who probably constitute the vast bulk of industry turnover; only for the literati, the academics and other IT professionals.
Or at least did, up until now. Because…
8. …far better educated by this debate, more Australians will shop increasingly online, or in chain stores, slowly causing the extinction of exactly that kind of ‘little, vocational bookshop’ that the pro-PIR loud-mouths claimed to be championing. Maybe as many as 2,000, 3,000 retail jobs - jobs people who are into books do, helping make up the ‘literary community’ - will go.
9. The Australian ‘printing sector’ - the Maryborough plant in that marginal Victorian electorate (300 employees), basically - will continue to refuse to tool up for digital print-on-demand, hoping traditional business will hold . It won’t. Its orders will drop as Australians buy online-overseas anyway, and it will go broke anyway, probably within two or three years, as Bob Carr pointed out over the weekend.
10. Finally, quite aside from the specific Lit funding boost thoroughly snubbed, Arts Minister Peter Garret will have expended an enormous amount of general political capital inside Cabinet with the finance hard-heads, which means that arts funding in general will probably suffer in the future. It’s galling enough for a Finance Minister or Treasurer to have to ‘lose one’ to the luvvies when the arts/cultural policy needing money is a good one. When it is a laughable joke of an anti-policy that in fact hurts the very sector it’s purportedly designed to help; when it’s a fiscal ‘no-brainer’ which, if your hardheads fail to get through will make them a laughing stock among the wider finance & policy sector…you can bet your PM’s ass it’s going to come back to bite yours, next time you go looking for money in a cultural or luvvie cause.
Then again, James, on the plus side to all that: we will all soon be able to enjoy Jessica Rudd’s debut novel.
Look, James, as I said, it’s not her fault and I assume nothing sinister anyway and I wish her the best. Writers claw their way into print however they can. But I do think Rudd - and especially Michael Heyward - not coming clean on this way, way earlier was not exactly in good faith; in fact, really shabby. It does tend to make a bit of a mockery of all the endless self-important braying from pro-PIR dudes like Heyward, about how culturally noble and critical and fragile their vocation is. As I said, I wouldn’t mind knowing when this deal was struck, and how Rudd’s (J) advance stacks up against other (unquestionably worthwhile) Text writers like James Bradley. Or even, outside text, someone like Delia Falconer, an exquisitely singular, deeply Australian writer and artist who’s probably doomed to remain a low-seller, and so dependent to a degree on the Lit Board path of subsidy, for her whole career. This decision hurts that kind of Australian writer. That’s what is so dumb about this. It hurts exactly those parts of the industry in whose name PIR champions claimed their lobbying victory. It can’t be all that much fun if you’re someone like Falconer, to have put your shoulder to the PIR grindstone behind guys like Heyward; only to wave bye-bye to more direct subsidy while waving hullo to Why-hullo-Ms Jessica Rudd’s ‘compulsively readable’ - albeit (ahem) not-yet-written! - first effort. (That’s one hell of a fine-tuned literary-aesthetic sensibility you got there, Mikey!) Put it this way, James: if, as Christopher Dunne above in this thread keeps braying, this is the kind of culturally-important vocational ‘risk’ Australian publishers ‘need’ PIR’s to underpin, such that they may help our national literature and cultural autonomy flourish…well, poor blameless young Jess Rudd is gunna find herself fair under the critical microscope when she does launch it, I expect!!
You want the mournful truth, James? Or at least mine? I rather think the truth - one just, only now, dawning on Australia’s wider ‘literary community’ - is that a small, self-serving coterie of ambitious publishers and writers who directly benefit from PIR’s - houses that trade in o/s rights; writers with o/s deals; the local management of Australian arms of multinational houses who can gouge Australians on the big brand best-sellers, and post heftier margin reports back home - have just successfully pulled off the greatest literary hoax since Ern Malley.
I could be wrong, James. But sadly, I really, really doubt it. Cheers, all. Finally!
Richard Jacobs (2.31pm). My article was aimed at the likes of you, but obviously I failed because you are raising all the false arguments and non-solutions that have done the rounds over the last 6 months. What did you not understand about point 4?
The moral argument is blindingly obvious: the right of an author to be paid for their creations under internationally agreed copyright law.
Perhaps you do not agree with that. But if you do then you need to suggest a scheme that solves that problem.
Also please re-read the earlier articles, such as the one with the table of Top Ten that proved that in the class of popular sellers (not of major interest to most of the bloggers here) there was little to support your bleating about paying higher.
It is a matter of choice whether you would support the cultural argument (local authors, editors, publishers, printers), and I suppose if you are worrying about the cost of Dan Brown and Jeffrey Archer, we can see where you stand on that issue.
“PIR-derived income for the vast majority of Australians in the literary community is….um…zero. And will continue to be…um…zero.
Sorry, ‘vast majority’, ‘zero’ are both a bit over-reaching, James: but put it this way, I question very, very strongly the claims made about the general ‘trickle down’ impact of PIR’s on the health and vibrancy of the wider literary community. Especially - and this is the key point - when compared with the efficiency and diversity and penetration of the dough that comes via the Literature Board (and other public sources, like school education programs, etc).
The irony, Jack, is that the Opposition can’t touch that story, because of the trick Dennis Shanahan of the Oz played on Turnbull earlier in the year, making it look as if he’d attacked Rudd’s family (which he hadn’t, incidentally). Anything to do with Rudd’s family is now politically untouchable. Knowing that just may have made Rudd a bit cocky, when normally he’s careful to stay right away from any direct corruption.
Anyone wondering whether Michael James comments in favour of the PIRs have validity might want to read the final government report on PIRs by The Australian Government Productivity Commission at http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/study/books/report
As might be expected of responsible public servants, they have weighed and judged each and every argument put forward by advocates of PIRs such as Michael. They have done their own research. They have unequivocally come down in favour of their removal.
The Australian Government Productivity Commission is an independent Government Dept, not some rent seekers mouthpiece such as Michael quotes. This Commission was set up by Paul Keating. Its role is to expose rent seekers operating against Australian consumers.
It has done so.
Richard: And the PC has been steadfastly been ignored by the biggest rentseekers of all, the current and former federal governments.
“If the publishers were worried about this loss to retailers you talk about, then they would seek to integrate retailing into their business. Rather like Amazon do, come to think of it.”
Thanks Meski. That’s a good constructive comment.
Richard Jacobs (4.51pm). I can only assume that you read their “Overview” (and that you are late to this discussion; the report has been referenced many times by Keane and myself and others in Crikey).
In the detail of the report itself they do NOT unambiguously declare that prices are always higher. For one thing they admit they ignore totally the cost of freight to Australia (like those bloggers who ignore Amazon’s postage charge; please no more comments about BD on that!). (or add the 10% GST).
They also have no solution to the remainder issue and the loss of income to authors that none of the other major english language markets would contemplate.
But then you also did not reply to this question. I do not know that it is much use repeating this same stuff over and over. Somehow you have just heard the Murdoch press and the likes of Fels and Bob Carr repeat “consumer rip off” and “lower cost books”.
Unless you or someone else who believes this nonsense, comes up with a sensible scheme that protects authors normal copyright, I am done with this particular discussion. I thank everyone for their contribution. After reading most of them I believe my original article remains correct.
What does it take to satisfy you Michael? You won the PIR debate. The country’s leading economic commission and one of its finest former public servants were ignored. The government effectively wrote off the future of the street-corner bookshop sector as a pre-internet anachronism for the sake of publishers; and still you’re angry.
Good point James. I have seen more anger from the people who won this debate than I have seen on the climate change or immigration issues. They seem outraged that anyone does not automatically think Australian books are the best and price is a secondary consideration.
“They also have no solution to the remainder issue and the loss of income to authors that none of the other major english language markets would contemplate.”
You’re just not being honest, Michael.
1. I’ve already argued in detail again and again how authors are IMHO protected against dumping by commercial and geographical and even ‘industry protocol’* factors far more than PIR’s. I’m not claiming that’s a lay-down slam, but what your side needed to do was show - with some far more compelling evidence than a couple of anecdotes about Peter Temple’s ‘Broken Shore’ and a stray copy of a Shane Maloney novel - that removing PIR’s would in fact have resulted in more dumping.
* As many submissions conceded, many books are in practise treated by local and international industry ‘as if’ PIR’s still apply to them even though the 30 day rule may have lapsed.
2. So how about some concrete numbers from some of the leading authors who warned of the remainders issue? You know, from Maloney, say: my novel X is still selling Y copies a year in Australia, and I know there are Z remainder US editions sitting waiting in warehouse A Chicago, for which I know Sneaky Pete’s Unbought Book Dumpa-Junction paid $1.40 per copy. If PIR’s are lifted, they will be able to ship them here and retail them at a profitable-to-all price of B per copy in retail outlets a-to-j, which will still be at least C cheaper to the endpoint customer than my local publisher can do it, enough to convince perhaps D% of my loyal local readers to choose the remaindered Yank version over the current Oz one, despite my best marketing efforts. A few authors in their submissions floated some theoretical examples - from memory, Toni Jordan, Garth Nix, the guy that does the Psycho Bum kids’ books - but they all stop short of getting into the nitty-gritty of freightage, distribution and retail costs cf. the internet warehouse option, as well as the specifics of how many local versions they’re still shifting.
None of them will do it because they know the numbers will rarely stack up. And also none of them want to highlight the basic mercantile fact underlying remainders which I have also made in the past:
3. These are books that buyers elsewhere have not wanted to buy. Unsold product. In market terms, failed product. Again as I have said before, in some cases, the authors will have been paid for them anyway, in the form of un-met advances. With technology changing everything, there are fewer excuses for producing remainders as an automatic systemic by-product of the industry’s framework every day. It’s environmentally wasteful to do so. There are multiple alternative options now. It’s a practice that needs to be not-so-slowly phased out of the business model, not sustained by the ongoing imposition of protective legislation (here and elsewhere) that hurts so many other industrial participants, as well as all consumers.
Why you think every book buyer in Australia should pay more for all books, small and medium booksellers be squeezed out by internet selling faster and more comprehensively than they might otherwise be, and the majority of Australian writers be robbed of a shot at greatly increased direct subsidy, just so that a small number of generally (relatively) more successful writers with a dud book oversupply problem on their hands can go on enjoying rules that maximize their income(s) in multiple, artificially-compartmentalised markets…still escapes me.
But what’s truly offensive in all this is the way your side has claimed the ‘moral’ high ground on this issue, as if only the stance that ‘cares’ about our writers and their incomes, our literary vibrancy and our cultural health in general, is the pro-PIR one. Some of the abuse the reformists have copped has been unnecessary and I thnk pretty revealing: philistines, haters of writers, anti-Oz cultural warriors, ‘sociopaths in suits’, cringers, or in my case: bitter, failed, resentful, jealous. And again, even the way you depart:
“Unless you or someone else who believes this nonsense, comes up with a sensible scheme that protects authors normal copyright, I am done with this particular discussion.”
…is the sort of sniffy, nobody-cares-about-writers-but-me language and debating tactic that, frankly, seems at odds with the fact that you got exactly what you want. Is it that you suspect that maybe, for most Australian writers most of the time, this will in fact prove the lousy outcome I think it is?
Michael thanks for your time, and we have to wait and see, I guess.
The Australian Government Productivity Commission is the independent and expert government department tasked with identifying substandard behaviour toward Australian Consumers. It was asked by the Government to collect all available information and form an opinion on PIRs and make a recommendation to Government on their retention or otherwise.
It has done so.
The first recommendation in its report, available at http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/study/books/report
is:
The Government should repeal Australia’s Parallel Import Restrictions (PIRs)
for books.
I strongly suggest that Michael read the report. It runs to around 240 pages, is carefully researched and details and refutes many of the logic errors in favour of PIRs made by Michael and others.
Michael and others make their comments in favour of PIRs forcefully and perhaps even sincerely, but forcefulness and sincerity in isolation are no substitute for scientific rigour, such as is found in the government report.
Michael claims authorship of over 100 scientific publications. I urge him, and any others claiming similar abilities to apply scientific method to the independent report of the Australian Government Productivity Commission and identify sufficient errors in it so as to invalidate its prime recommendation, if they are able.
So long as Michael and his supporters refuse to do so they must surely understand the difficulty some of us have when he asks us to prefer his opinions over the scientifically reached independent conclusions of the Australian Government Productivity Commission.
I submitted an online enquiry to the ACCC about the limitation of sale of ebooks to Australia, particular where the Amazon kindle is involved. I said I would post the reply here. This is the reply, received today.
“Dear Ms Blackall
Thank you for your email inquiry of 14 November 2009 to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) regarding Amazon Kindles.
The role of the ACCC is to ensure compliance with the Trade Practices Act 1974 (TPA), which is designed to encourage fair trading and discourage anti-competitive conduct through a specific set of competition and consumer protection rules.
Section 52 of the TPA is a broad provision which prohibits a corporation, in trade or commerce, engaging in conduct which is misleading or deceptive, or which is likely to mislead or deceive. Whether particular conduct is misleading or deceptive is a question of fact to be determined in the context of the evidence as to the alleged conduct and to the relevant surrounding facts and circumstances. If you think you have entered the on the basis that all Amazon books advertised would be available to Australian consumers, when in fact only 25% are available, you should first attempt to pursue a remedy with Amazon.
Section 45 of the TPA prohibits anticompetitive agreements (agreements between competitors) that have the purpose, or likely effect of substantially lessening competition in a market in which the businesses operate. The ACCC would be interested if you have any information that may suggest that there is an agreement between publishers to restrict the supply of books for any particular reason.
In assessing any complaint, staff of the ACCC would generally determine whether or not the matter falls within the jurisdiction of the TPA, whether or not there appears to have been a breach of the TPA, and if so, whether the impact of the conduct is so serious and widespread that it is appropriate that the ACCC should take some action. The ACCC generally takes enforcement action in circumstances where there are broad flow on benefits for industry and consumers alike. While there may be some instances where a breach of the TPA has occurred, it may be more appropriate for consumers to pursue these matters individually as a private matter and in many instances their local Office of Fair Trading will be able to assist with advice on how to proceed in such matters.
Often private actions are more appropriate because they are aimed at remedying a particular dispute between the parties. It must be emphasised that, ultimately, it is a matter for the Courts to determine whether the alleged conduct breaches the TPA and a private right of action is available to anyone who suffers loss or damage as a consequence of a contravention of the TPA. It may be prudent to seek independent legal advice on what further action may be appropriate.
Your matter is important to the ACCC as it assists us in determining issues with national or wider public interest implications. We closely study the patterns of complaints that we receive to ensure that our enforcement and education actions are focused on the areas of greatest concern to Australian consumers. Consequently, the details of your matter have been recorded and will be used to determine whether there is a pattern of behaviour by a particular trader or in a particular industry that raise broader concerns.
Thank you for contacting the ACCC with your concerns.”
It looks like they will not be able to do anything about this issue. It was worth a try anyway.