Bookseller+Publisher Online

Hitting back at the Dymocks petition launched last week, Australians for Australian Books (an umbrella group comprising the APA, Australian Society of Authors, Printing Industries Australia and the Australian Literary Agents' Association) has started its own online petition and is asking for expressions of public support for its position in favour of the retention of the existing territorial copyright and parallel importation regulations. The petition can be found at http://www.ausbooks.com.au/petition.php and it will form part of the APA's final submission to the Productivity Commission. 

On the other side of the fence, Dymocks last week launched its online petition asking its customers to show their support for an open market. The petition is causing much controversy within the trade, but Dymocks CEO Don Grover told WBN that ‘our customers are responding to [our petition] in droves: they concur with us that they're spending too much for books and are willing to rectify it'.

However, Australians for Australian Books believes that the Commission's pricing comparisons are flawed and that books are not unduly expensive in Australia. The Ausbooks website presents the group's own price comparison studies, in order to back up its assertion. Taking a ‘Christmas bundle' of popular titles, the Australians for Australian Books charts show the bundle to be considerably cheaper in Australia than US or UK prices at full retail, and to be comparable with Amazon's discounted prices, even including freight.

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