German booksellers send letter to Greek PM

Noting that this was contrary to the Greek EU presidency's programme, the letter asks Samaras to re-examine the issue and its possible risks.
"In countries where the system of uniform book prices was abandoned, we saw the average price of books increase.

Only a few, high-selling titles are put into the market in high quantities and low prices by supermarkets and other large retail chains. The result of this is a restriction of choices, fewer titles available to readers at attractive prices and the bookshop network decreases.

This development is not easily reversed," said Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels President Heinrich Riethmüller.

A fixed book price agreement (FBPA) is a form of resale price maintenance applied to books. It commonly takes the form of an agreement between publishers and booksellers which set the prices at which books were to be sold to the public. An example of an FBPA was the former Net Book Agreement in the United Kingdom.

The key idea of an FBPA is to promote non-price competition between booksellers in order to promote the sale of little-known, difficult or otherwise culturally interesting books rather than catering only to blockbuster readers.

To do so, an FBPA is deemed to ensure that the booksellers that provide the corresponding presale services are able to recoup their higher costs with a guaranteed margin on blockbusters.

A related case is the existence of a fixed book price law (FBPA), where the book prices are kept fixed by law. An example of an FBPA  is the current Lang Law in France.

Riethmüller said that he shared the concerns of Greek publishers, booksellers and authors that disagree with the proposed measure, which would abolish uniform book prices with the exception of first editions of literature.

He notes that the uniform pricing system has been used in Germany for the last 150 years and by law since 2002, since policy makers agreed that books were not simply another commodity but had a special cultural value that was not subject to market laws, in the way of other goods.