This week, the Productivity Commission released its report on parallel importation rules for the Australian publishing industry.
This has been a thorny issue for some months now and the report, not unexpectedly, has been greeted generally with horror by authors, publishers, printers and various writers’ organisations.
It’s a tricky topic to cover in great detail if you’re not familiar with the legal and economic implications of parallel importation, which was implemented in the early 1990s by the Hawke/Keating government.
So how do you make a decision on where you stand on this issue? Both sides have great arguments. Authors and publishers want to protect our culture as well as the income of writers. Certain booksellers (certainly not all) want to be able to sell cheaper books. Book buyers are increasingly turning to cheaper online bookstores for their books.
There have been some really interesting blog posts and articles written in response to the report and I thought I’d share them here.
The Australian Bookseller and Publisher site has a good article outlining the issues on its website. The Australian Writers’ Marketplace blog, Speakeasy, also has an excellent summary.
For arguments against the commission’s findings, check out the Australian Society of Authors website as well as some author responses - Garth Nix and Nick Earles, and Shane Maloney.
For the arguments for, see Bob Carr’s editorial in The Australian as well as author and publisher Michael Wilding’s response in The Sydney Morning Herald.
You can also view the recent debate between Don Grover, CEO of Dymocks, and author Garth Nix on ABC's Lateline in May.
Of course, these links are just the tip of the iceberg, but I hope they help to make sense of what's becoming an extremely emotive and political issue.
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