1) Historical background
In mid1970, FNAC, the biggest cultural retail chain dived into book industry and started selling book with a significant amount of discounts, which conventional bookstore couldn’t afford. In this context, French government started to discuss the importance of regulating the price of books, and they took into action of the fixed price of book to achieve the idea of greater acceptance that cultural diversity and national unlikeness should be maintained and encouraged by pursuing cultural policy more actively. Based on this idea, the form of UNESCO's Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity has played a significantly important role in French cultural policy and French-language cultural research. The French Fixed Book Price Law (FBPL) was adopted in 1981. It is mostly called 'le loi Lang' or the Lang Law, after the pro-active French Minister of Culture Jacques Lang who took the initiative for it. Already at that time, French cultural policy was concerned with preserving all things French in the face of the European hegemony and the increasingly more globalized cultural industry market of which French art and culture production were part, but which has been found to be a challenge. 1) Consequences of enforcement Undoubtedly, France is well known as the most successful example for the fixed book price regulation of Lang Law in France. …show more content…
Under the lead of Jack Lang, the Minister of Culture, France, legalized a firm fixed book price regulation to protect their local bookstores. According to this regulation, publishing companies present the list price of books at the first stage. From this fixed price, the retailers such as bookstores and supermarkets can discount only up to 5%. This was done to protect local book stores against the market encroachment of the global giant bookstore companies such as FNAC. As a result of the fixed book price regulation, France became the world’s number one country in terms of bookstore portion and the healthy publishing infrastructure; there are about 3500 traditional bookstores, including about 800 bookstores unrelated to any publishing and retailing franchises. In addition to the fact that the law has been protecting small and medium-sized bookstores in the commercial competitive market, this regulation has contributed to preserving identity and protecting diversity by focusing on support creativity, publishing and a healthy book retail system. The Fixed book price regulation is considered a hidden contributor in making France one of the top 5 publishing countries with a market size of 4.5 billion Euros. 1) Major Amendment In 2011, France passed a special law pertaining to digital books (e-book). In this amendment, e-books are expressed as intellectual property with one or more writers, published in digital form and as printed books, or which, based on their content and composition, are susceptible to publication in printed format. Books may lend themselves for publication in printed format also in the event they have annexes that will only be digital. It is easy to assume that audiobooks (which is also typically in digital form) did not lend themselves to publication in printed format, and thereby fall outside the scope of the FBPL. In addition to this amendment, the French government felt they need another policy to the fixed pricing. Because Amazon and other online retailers, quickly realized they could offer 5 percent discounts more consistently than independent bookstores, and could offer free
In mid1970, FNAC, the biggest cultural retail chain dived into book industry and started selling book with a significant amount of discounts, which conventional bookstore couldn’t afford. In this context, French government started to discuss the importance of regulating the price of books, and they took into action of the fixed price of book to achieve the idea of greater acceptance that cultural diversity and national unlikeness should be maintained and encouraged by pursuing cultural policy more actively. Based on this idea, the form of UNESCO's Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity has played a significantly important role in French cultural policy and French-language cultural research. The French Fixed Book Price Law (FBPL) was adopted in 1981. It is mostly called 'le loi Lang' or the Lang Law, after the pro-active French Minister of Culture Jacques Lang who took the initiative for it. Already at that time, French cultural policy was concerned with preserving all things French in the face of the European hegemony and the increasingly more globalized cultural industry market of which French art and culture production were part, but which has been found to be a challenge. 1) Consequences of enforcement Undoubtedly, France is well known as the most successful example for the fixed book price regulation of Lang Law in France. …show more content…
Under the lead of Jack Lang, the Minister of Culture, France, legalized a firm fixed book price regulation to protect their local bookstores. According to this regulation, publishing companies present the list price of books at the first stage. From this fixed price, the retailers such as bookstores and supermarkets can discount only up to 5%. This was done to protect local book stores against the market encroachment of the global giant bookstore companies such as FNAC. As a result of the fixed book price regulation, France became the world’s number one country in terms of bookstore portion and the healthy publishing infrastructure; there are about 3500 traditional bookstores, including about 800 bookstores unrelated to any publishing and retailing franchises. In addition to the fact that the law has been protecting small and medium-sized bookstores in the commercial competitive market, this regulation has contributed to preserving identity and protecting diversity by focusing on support creativity, publishing and a healthy book retail system. The Fixed book price regulation is considered a hidden contributor in making France one of the top 5 publishing countries with a market size of 4.5 billion Euros. 1) Major Amendment In 2011, France passed a special law pertaining to digital books (e-book). In this amendment, e-books are expressed as intellectual property with one or more writers, published in digital form and as printed books, or which, based on their content and composition, are susceptible to publication in printed format. Books may lend themselves for publication in printed format also in the event they have annexes that will only be digital. It is easy to assume that audiobooks (which is also typically in digital form) did not lend themselves to publication in printed format, and thereby fall outside the scope of the FBPL. In addition to this amendment, the French government felt they need another policy to the fixed pricing. Because Amazon and other online retailers, quickly realized they could offer 5 percent discounts more consistently than independent bookstores, and could offer free