ActuaLitté is reporting that new French legislation will allow publishers to fix the price of ebooks. This will bring ebooks into line with the Lang law that prevents the discounting of books more than 5% below the sales price.
The really nutty thing, however, is the provision of the law that prevents libraries from offering ebooks at the same moment that the paper book is released.
Clearly this is all aimed at Google and Amazon. Here is a Google translation of part of the article about an interview with Herve Gaymard: In the interview published in The Tribune yesterday, Herve Gaymard stated that the legislation ” the single price of digital books “was mandatory legislation. And primarily ” for new players like Google and Amazon know what to expect. These are butt and went to face the resistance of French publishers, they are now obliged to negotiate . ”
Sometimes it sucks to be French…