New monopoly right in The Netherlands

The dumbest government we have seen for ages has managed to pull another rabbit from the hat. Book prices are now officially regulated, meaning that you are not allowed to sell them cheaply. The booksellers have even set up a site giving information (with which they mean: propaganda) to explain the motives behind the new law. The main motive appears to be to ensure a rich choice of books; without minimum prices (which until now booksellers illegally agreed to amongst themselves), bookstores would only offer the best-sellers.

I find that dubious reasoning at best. And somehow I doubt bookstores formed an illegal cartel until now just so that they could look after our cultural landscape.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 14th, 2005 at 4:09 am and is filed under Black Book, Copyright. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.