Book retail law change?

mork | 00:37 Fri 18th Apr 2003 | Arts & Literature

4 Answers

Was there a change in the law a few years ago that meant new books could now be sold for much less if the outlet so chose; something about the RRP having to be adhered to for the first year or two, prior to this law? I heard something to this effect. Can aybody clarify/ deny/ expand?

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woofgang

I think the agreement was betwen bookshops and publishers and was called the net book agreement. Shops who wouldn't adhere to it wouldn't get books to sell. Then some of the larger chain booksellers got together and agreed not to adhere to it any more. I think that this was also fuelled by internet sales as other countries, eg USA had no net book agreement and once it was easy to buy over the net, then the situation in UK had to change

jenstar

I think the net book agreement was scrapped in the early 90s so the www wouldn't have had anything to do with it.

cupra

Any such agreement would now fall foul of EU anti-competition laws..... I assume this is the law that 'stopped' the price fixing.

mork

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woofgang, jenstar, cupra... I thank you.

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