The Bookseller.com

4th July 2009

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Mexico votes for fixed prices

06.05.08 Barbara Casassus

The Mexican Senate or upper house of parliament has voted by a massive majority to introduce fixed book prices. The law was adopted by the Senate on 29th April by 107 votes in favour, two against and five abstentions, according to the French weekly Livres Hebdo.

It is the second time in recent years that the Mexican parliament has voted in favour of adopting fixed prices on books. The law, which will ban all discounts on retail book prices for the first three years after publication, had previously been passed by both houses of parliament and was ready to be published in September 2006 when the former Mexican president Vicente Fox vetoed it at the last minute.

Current president Felipe Calderon spoke in favour of the law when he was at the Guadalajara book fair at the end of last November, and there is continuing strong support among politicians.

Nevertheless, Mexican publishers were only cautiously optimistic that a law would reach the statute books. "I am half optimistic that the bill will be passed before December," Marcelo Uribe, vice-president of the Mexican Publishers Association and c.e.o. of Ediciones Era, told The Bookseller in March.

The idea of a fixed book price law in Mexico was first suggested about eight years ago, and work on it began about four years ago, Uribe said. The legislation does not include school text books for elementary and lower secondary schools, which are bought by the State.

Argentina is currently the only country in the Americas to have fixed book price legislation. In contrast, such laws have spread across western Europe and are now in place in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Spain.

Israel is also working towards a fixed book price, Israeli ambassador to France Daniel Shek said in March that a single book price "will happen sooner or later, whether by agreement or legislation".

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