22 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections Google in its library digitization on infringements of works under French copyright. The industry trade association SNE, together with the French government, regularly stand up to defend French culture and its national book industry against what are seen as challenges from global market forces and play- ers. This controversy—which was fostered by Hachette Livres, among others, from the very beginning—did not however hinder what is by far the largest publishing group in France from actively seeking Google’s coopera- tion in digitizing its vast catalog of up to 50,000 titles— or 70 percent of the group’s backlist—in a landmark agreement that was approved by mid-2011, despite signi cant opposition from some other French publish- ers involved in the opposition of the Google settlement. In August 2011, publisher La Martinière also signed a digitization agreement with Google, and in September 2011, Albin Michel, Flammarion, and Gallimard (whose publisher, Antoine Gallimard, is also president of the French SNE) also dropped their charges against Google, at least for the moment (Livres Hebdo, September 7, 2011). By mid 2012, all these legal controversies had been settled. To strengthen copyright nationally, legislation to protect rights on the Internet (Loi Hadopi, based on the creation of a “Haute autorité pour la di usion des oeu- vres et la protection des droits sur internet”) was intro- duced in 2009. Hadopi had been designed mainly for music and video. Defending a diversi ed cultural infrastructure—nota- bly, a tightly knit network of bookstores—resonates in various and continuous media reports and political action aiming at protecting the diversi ed traditional infrastructure around the book from disruptive forces in the current change of the industry. Distributors So far, online book sales were dominated in France by local platforms, notably Fnac. Amazon operated a dedi- cated French-language online retail platform, but a books was immediately challenged by the European Commission (Livres Hebdo, January 18, 2011). Earlier in 2011, the law regarding a xed book retail price (“Loi sur le Prix Unique du Livre Numérique”) as de ned by the publisher was rendered e ective for ebooks e ective January 1, 2012. As a result of the lowered VAT, and general market developments, consumer prices for ebooks are expected to drop in 2012 some publishers—notably Gallimard, but also Denoël and Mercure de France—already low- ered prices in December 2011, followed by Hachette titles in spring 2012, which resulted in ebooks being sold at prices around 30 percent less than the print edition of the same work. The surge in the digital segment coincided with an overall at market in France for 2011. Although overall sales in December appeared to have been strong, the months between January and November 2011 saw a drop of 1.5 percent compared to the same period in 2010 (source: Livres Hebdo/I+C). A much stronger drop of –3.2 percent in revenue for 2011 hit the largest media (and book retail) chain Fnac, as it announced plans to eliminate 500 sta positions, including 310 at its opera- tions in France (Livres Hebdo, January 13, 2012). Political and Cultural Context for eBooks in France The ebook (or livre numérique) faces an environment in France that is characterized by various factors from politics, culture, and trade. France—through its National Library and its national digital library, Gallica, with currently 1.5 million digital documents on display)—has gotten an early start on the digitization of its book culture. France also has a strong tradition of national politics spearheading the digital dissemination of its legacy and of creating institutional frameworks for such ambitions, including the European digital library project Europeana. French publishers, while setting up the infrastructure for an emerging ebook market, had started to confront
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22 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections Google in its library digitization on infringements of works under French copyright. The industry trade association SNE, together with the French government, regularly stand up to defend French culture and its national book industry against what are seen as challenges from global market forces and play- ers. This controversy—which was fostered by Hachette Livres, among others, from the very beginning—did not however hinder what is by far the largest publishing group in France from actively seeking Google’s coopera- tion in digitizing its vast catalog of up to 50,000 titles— or 70 percent of the group’s backlist—in a landmark agreement that was approved by mid-2011, despite signi cant opposition from some other French publish- ers involved in the opposition of the Google settlement. In August 2011, publisher La Martinière also signed a digitization agreement with Google, and in September 2011, Albin Michel, Flammarion, and Gallimard (whose publisher, Antoine Gallimard, is also president of the French SNE) also dropped their charges against Google, at least for the moment (Livres Hebdo, September 7, 2011). By mid 2012, all these legal controversies had been settled. To strengthen copyright nationally, legislation to protect rights on the Internet (Loi Hadopi, based on the creation of a “Haute autorité pour la di usion des oeu- vres et la protection des droits sur internet”) was intro- duced in 2009. Hadopi had been designed mainly for music and video. Defending a diversi ed cultural infrastructure—nota- bly, a tightly knit network of bookstores—resonates in various and continuous media reports and political action aiming at protecting the diversi ed traditional infrastructure around the book from disruptive forces in the current change of the industry. Distributors So far, online book sales were dominated in France by local platforms, notably Fnac. Amazon operated a dedi- cated French-language online retail platform, but a books was immediately challenged by the European Commission (Livres Hebdo, January 18, 2011). Earlier in 2011, the law regarding a xed book retail price (“Loi sur le Prix Unique du Livre Numérique”) as de ned by the publisher was rendered e ective for ebooks e ective January 1, 2012. As a result of the lowered VAT, and general market developments, consumer prices for ebooks are expected to drop in 2012 some publishers—notably Gallimard, but also Denoël and Mercure de France—already low- ered prices in December 2011, followed by Hachette titles in spring 2012, which resulted in ebooks being sold at prices around 30 percent less than the print edition of the same work. The surge in the digital segment coincided with an overall at market in France for 2011. Although overall sales in December appeared to have been strong, the months between January and November 2011 saw a drop of 1.5 percent compared to the same period in 2010 (source: Livres Hebdo/I+C). A much stronger drop of –3.2 percent in revenue for 2011 hit the largest media (and book retail) chain Fnac, as it announced plans to eliminate 500 sta positions, including 310 at its opera- tions in France (Livres Hebdo, January 13, 2012). Political and Cultural Context for eBooks in France The ebook (or livre numérique) faces an environment in France that is characterized by various factors from politics, culture, and trade. France—through its National Library and its national digital library, Gallica, with currently 1.5 million digital documents on display)—has gotten an early start on the digitization of its book culture. France also has a strong tradition of national politics spearheading the digital dissemination of its legacy and of creating institutional frameworks for such ambitions, including the European digital library project Europeana. French publishers, while setting up the infrastructure for an emerging ebook market, had started to confront

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