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The Australian Government's economic advisory body is likely to recommend scrapping copyright provisions preventing the parallel importing of books, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
The Commission is expected to recommend dropping the law "after a period of up to three years to give the industry time to adjust". The newspaper said it understood the final report would "go further" than the draft paper, released in March, which suggested the restriction would only apply for a year, allowing imports of backlist titles to take place after the deadline. Instead, it is expected the proposals will "suggest the eventual removal of all import restrictions".
Currently, the system stipulates that if Australian publishers bring out a local version of a given book within 30 days, retailers are not allowed to import another version.
Some retailers, such as the Coalition for Cheaper Books set up by book chain Dymocks, and the retail chains Woolworths and Coles - have argued that removing copyright limits would benefit customers, and allow shops to compete against online companies such as Amazon.com.
But writers and publishers have argued removing the restrictions would undermine Australian authors and make a mockery of territorial rights deals.