Mandatory discount on e-books scrapped; publishers and booksellers welcome the move

The mandatory discount – set at 50 per cent of the cover price – for digital versions of school and university textbooks has been dropped from the budget bill: the Chamber of Deputies’ Budget Committee called for its removal on grounds of “regulatory nature”. Publishers and booksellers are satisfied, having called in recent days for the provision to be scrapped, as they deemed it “pointless and harmful”, destined to place a burden on the supply chain without offering any real benefits to families. Indeed, booksellers in particular argued that there was a risk it would backfire on consumers, who would be forced to print the digital text themselves and thus, ultimately, end up spending more.

“We are satisfied,” says Innocenzo Cipolletta, president of the Italian Publishers’ Association. “We remain convinced that a provision which would have encouraged piracy is unworkable,” he adds, once again describing “the requirement to obtain a licence to print a digital text as unlawful, in the light of national and European copyright protection legislation”. For the AIE president, “the best way to guarantee the right to education” remains “increasing the resources available to less well-off families”. On this front, the AIE hopes that “the dialogue, which has been ongoing for some time with the Minister for Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara, will continue and be brought to a successful conclusion”.

Ali-Confcommercio also welcomes the withdrawal: “We remain, of course, open – says the president, Paolo Ambrosini – to identifying all possible solutions to tackle the problems linked to educational publishing, aware of the need to respond to the needs of families and schools, as we have long been calling for”. “As we have highlighted in recent days, this would have been a change offering no real economic benefit to users, as it would have introduced a product onto the market that would not have been any cheaper than the books already available today,” echoes Antonio Terzi, president of Sil Confesercenti, who nevertheless warns: “This step backwards does not make us forget the urgency of engaging in dialogue with the institutions. We need to work together with the entire supply chain to identify proposals capable of making existing measures to support demand more effective, broadening their scope and enabling local bookshops to compete sustainably, whilst continuing to fulfil their vital role in the local community.” Federcartolai had also spoken out against the regulation: “It merely postpones the moment when families have to pay,” the organisation commented. And furthermore, “it calls into question the way we learn. As stationers, we’ve seen this for years: digital technology in schools is a useful tool when integrated, not when used as a substitute.”