Author, Nick Earls spoke out eloquently against Parallel Imports six years ago.
His words are as valid today as then....
Cheaper books - it's a great carrot to dangle, but are things
really that simple? Australian author Nick Earls thinks not.
First,
are books in Australia more expensive than elsewhere? The Productivity
Commission worked hard to prove that was the case, but couldn't. In the end
they decided that measuring the magnitude of any actual price efforts related
to territorial copyright was 'problematic' and in its recent draft report did
not 'put a figure on them'.
The entire argument from the Coalition for Big
Business (sorry, Coalition for Cheaper Books, ie, Wesfarmers, Woolworths,
Dymocks, etc) is that abandoning territorial copyright would make books
cheaper, but no one has proven that it does.
If good
data existed demonstrating a clear and sustained price benefit, it would need
to be weighed against possible detriments. If there is no good data to
demonstrate conclusively the benefit of change - as is currently the case - the
change should simply not be made.
The fact
is that some books are cheaper in Australia, some are more expensive and some
cost around the same as elsewhere, and prices vary from book to book, time to
time, retailer to retailer and with changes in the exchange rate.
Either side
in this argument can cherry pick individual books - and times with exchange
rates that favour their case - and wave them in the air in order to make their
point, but it doesn't prove a point about an entire industry. Beware of
economic rationalists waving Tim Winton novels, and the comparisons they
make....
