
Should the United States Declare Books an ‘Essential Good’? - drobertduke
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/books/review/should-the-united-states-declare-books-an-essential-good.html
======
dkopi
" At the same time, price discounts on books are limited to 5 percent and
can’t be offered in conjunction with free shipping."

They've recently just tried this law in Israel. The result? The printing of
New books has screeched to a halt. When you can't offer discounts on new
books, the publishers are only willing to take the chance on famous well
established authors. The law is especially absurd, because even if you're a
self published author, you can't offer discounts on your own books.

When you pass laws against book discounts, fewer books will be published,
fewer books will be bought and fewer books will be read.

~~~
rbehrends
This seems to be more a lesson in the difficulty of bottling a solution that
works in one country and reusing it elsewhere.

Because in France and Germany, the exact opposite happens: the profits of
bestsellers are being used to cross-subsidize new books and new authors. This
is in fact one of the rationales behind both countries having price-fixing
laws: namely, to preserve the profit margin for bestsellers to make such
cross-subsidies possible.

You can argue whether that is fair (I know there are plenty of French and
German readers who'd rather have cheaper bestsellers instead of books by new
authors that they may never read), but both countries have a healthy book
publishing industry.

So, while this may not have worked in Israel, in France and Germany plenty of
books are being published, bought, and read. In fact, Germany publishes more
books per capita and year than the US, even though German publishers can't
easily sell to the much bigger international English language market.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_per...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_per_year)

~~~
chestnut-tree
_"...the profits of bestsellers are being used to cross-subsidize new books
and new authors"_

The publishing market seems to vary quite a bit country-by-country judging by
the comments here.

In the UK, we also had an agreement between publishers and booksellers called
the Net Book Agreement [1] which set fixed book prices. The original defence
of the agreement was that it subsidised important but less popular works. The
Agreement was scrapped in 1997.

What effect did that have on the publishing market? For a start, discounts by
online retailers and even supermarkets have altered people's expectations of
book pricing. Most people simply don't expect to pay full price for new titles
anymore. Many independent bookshops can't compete on price and have closed.
However, the number (and variety) of books published hasn't declined - quite
the opposite: new and revised titles have grown substantially according to the
Guardian report below [2]. But some publishers feel there are too many titles
being published and the volume isn't sustainable.

Books, magazines and newspapers are exempt from VAT in the UK. However,
e-books are subject to full (UK) VAT rate of 20%.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Book_Agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Book_Agreement)

[2] [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/22/uk-publishes-
mo...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/22/uk-publishes-more-books-
per-capita-million-report)

------
a3_nm
To give some more information about the French perspective here:

\- No source is given for the claim that "The French government has declared
books an 'essential good.'", I have been unable to find any French source
about this, and I am entirely unaware of such a declaration. I would be
interested if anyone could point me to more information about this.

\- There is a fixed price law on books, which to my knowledge has nothing to
do with them being considered "essential". The way it works is that the book
publisher sets the final sale price of the book that will have to be applied
everywhere
([https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_relative_au_prix_du_livre)...](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_relative_au_prix_du_livre\);)
a maximal rebate of 5% is permitted, which in practice is applied everywhere
(except for online sales, see below). This is not unique to France and exists
in several countries
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_book_price_agreement#Sco...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_book_price_agreement#Scope)).
My understanding of the point of this measure is that it reduces competition
between booksellers, allowing smaller booksellers to survive, and allowing
them to offer rarer books than just blockbusters.

\- There is a cultural attachment to smaller bookshops, and a dislike of large
foreign players (Amazon) even compared to large French players (Fnac, Gibert-
Joseph, etc.). The smaller bookshops claim that Amazon's free shipping poses a
great threat to their existence. Free shipping was challenged by the French
Booksellers Association, ultimately unsuccessfully ([http://www.maitre-
eolas.fr/post/2008/05/15/954-le-prix-du-li...](http://www.maitre-
eolas.fr/post/2008/05/15/954-le-prix-du-livre-n-inclut-pas-le-prix-du-timbre-
poste)). Recently, however, a law was passed to achieve the same results, with
online booksellers being forbidden to offer free shipping (hence Amazon.fr
charges 0.01 EUR shipping for books) and being forbidden to offer the 5%
discount.
([http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTE...](http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000029210814&categorieLien=id)
article 1). Of course, one could also argue that online bookselling makes
books more easily available to the end consumer (and faster, say, than asking
a library to order your books for you); but the problem is that the role of
booksellers, to select interesting books and guide you in your choice, is
lost.

~~~
seszett
> _No source is given for the claim that "The French government has declared
> books an 'essential good.'", I have been unable to find any French source
> about this, and I am entirely unaware of such a declaration. I would be
> interested if anyone could point me to more information about this._

VAT for books in France is 5,5%[0] which is also called the "reduced rate for
first necessity products"[1].

It is the same rate as for food and water. Other cultural goods,
transportation, fast-food and other products have a 10% rate, and the regular
rate for all other non-special products is 20%.

[0] [http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/professionnels-
entreprise...](http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/professionnels-
entreprises/F22713.xhtml#N100EE)

[1]
[http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxe_sur_la_valeur_ajout%C3%A9e...](http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxe_sur_la_valeur_ajout%C3%A9e_en_France#La_TVA_collect.C3.A9e)

~~~
twic
For what it's worth, VAT on books in 0% in the UK:

[https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-
notice-70110-...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-
notice-70110-zero-rating-of-books-and-other-forms-of-printed-matter/vat-
notice-70110-zero-rating-of-books-and-other-forms-of-printed-matter)

Not because we're some sort of literary paradise, though. Probably some civil
servant decided in the '50s that books were improving and zero-rated them, and
now everyone would kick up a fuss if it changed.

------
WalterBright
"Books have no privileged position in the American system of law and commerce.
We, the workers of the book business — writers, agents, editors, designers,
publicists, booksellers and others — often bemoan this fact. Books, it seems
to us, are different. [...] Surely our industry deserves special treatment."

Talk to any businessman. He'll say he believes in the free market, but his
business is special and deserves special protection.

~~~
drivingmenuts
If you have enough money, you _can_ achieve the American dream of having your
business receive special protection.

But there's no 5% discount on Congressmen.

------
r0s
Books record ideas, but the medium itself is usually bottom of the barrel
commodity trash. Where does that paper come from? Who printed it and how is
that business run?

Are those companies worth saving despite a changing medium? That's the real
question.

------
FranOntanaya
The content is an essential good, but the container is just a container.

------
vegedor
You don't die without them, Books are not essential for Live. They are not
really essential for learning development either, but an essential factor in
the development of culture since the invention of the book-press.

Consider the intrinsic value to be much higher than the production cost of
books, so much that free information can be guarantied by law, where books
should be equal to internet access, a telephone and if you will a TV; or the
socially direct communication through people. Books as medium are inseparable
from the speech and should therefore remain free speech and not seizable,
whether essential or merely sufficient. This is partly guaranteed through
public libraries, but the capacity is limited, compared to a distributed
model.

tl;dr: didn't read the link :/

