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Swiss Voters Reject Book Price Controls
New submitter hinterwaeldler writes "In 2007 Switzerland abandoned book price control (which requires publishers to fix prices for their books and forbids any dealer to sell at another price), reducing prices by 30% to 50% for online buyers. The brick & mortar book stores lobbied the parliament into creating a bill to reinstate the price fixing, against which a referendum was taken by liberals and the Pirate Party, forcing a popular vote. On March 11, after an intense debate, Swiss voters decided against book price control (German-language original) with a majority of 56%."
It would be nice to have a functioning democracy. I just wish we could have a referendum on protectionism here in the U.S.
"...a majority of 56%"
Still sounds pretty divided to me.
Although I agree with the outcome. It is simply common sense. Prices at a brick and mortar store will be higher, you are paying for the convenience of buying something immediately. Online prices will of course be lower, they don't have the overhead, however you have to wait days, weeks for your order, as well as pay for shipping.
So no I don't feel bad for the dinosaurs of industry that think they can legislate profits. @%$#^! you. If the market says we want more online stores than brick and mortar, then so be it. Quit saying the market is king on one hand and with the other lobbying government to legislate monopoly powers to manipulate the market!
I'm Swiss, so I think I can give some insights in the vote.
The law wasn't so much about online retailers, but more about big retail store (Walmart-like) that could sell bestseller at a much lower price than independent bookstore because of agreement they (apparently) have with importers.
Now, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, most books are imported from France. Basically, there is only one importer for each book and this situation allow the importers to fix outrageous prices (up to 80% more than the price in France for the same book). Now, an independent bookstore cannot put any pressure on the importer since the importer has the monopoly on a range of books. Big retail store can put more pressure on the importers because the importers somehow depend on them.
So, this law was a way to protect the independent bookstores and allow a governement body to fix limit on the swiss price/french price ratio.
The situation is kind of different in the German part of Switzerland, because they have some kind of regulation by the association of bookstore. Interestingly enough, all of the French-speaking county accepted the law, but all the German-speaking one refused it (so it got refused because we have more German-speaking).
Now, there are some other way to fight against the book importers cartel and the "Swiss competition commision" said it will start an investigation about the prices and possibly illegal agreements between big retail store and monopolistic importers.