Peter Ryan reported this story on Friday, April 29, 2016 12:50:00

KIM LANDERS: Authors and booksellers have slammed a proposal by the Productivity Commission that would change rules preventing the unrestricted import of books into Australia.



In a report out today, the commission says current import restrictions on books are the analogue equivalent of "geo blocking" - the same way that consumers are stopped from accessing overseas streaming sites like Netflix.



The recommendations for change are part of a major overhaul of Australian intellectual property laws.



The Australian Society of Authors warns though, that a flood of cheap imported books would hurt Australian authors and threaten the $2 billion industry.



The society's chief executive, Juliette Rogers, is speaking with our business editor, Peter Ryan.



JULIETTE ROGERS: Well our concerns for these recommendations are that it really does make it a non-competitive environment for authors in this country who are responsible for sort of building the cultural identity, and they would not be playing on a level playing field with their colleagues in the US and the UK.



PETER RYAN: Are you saying that these changes that the Productivity Commission is recommending would hurt the livelihoods of authors and booksellers?



JULIETTE ROGERS: Absolutely, certainly hurt the livelihood of the authors, because it changes the whole balance of the industry which Mark Rubbo who just won the International Bookseller of the Year award in London described as an ecosystem, which at the moment is a very vibrant and most successful of the creative industries.



PETER RYAN: Just explain to us how the current system protects local authors and booksellers.



JULIETTE ROGERS: The current system allows authors to sell rights to their work. That is their only stock in trade they've got, that's how they're paid, they sell their content. And at the moment they can sell that to territories throughout the world. If these changes were to come into play, anybody can sell books into the Australian market.



PETER RYAN: The Productivity Commission though says that the current rules covering the book industry amounts to geo blocking, do you think that's the same thing?



JULIETTE ROGERS: No, because the physical book is a different thing. The whole structure of the way they're produced is different but it is responsibly allowing a local cultural industry to flourish without making prohibiting access for consumers.



PETER RYAN: Do you have any good example of how a local product or a local author has been protected by the laws that are currently in place?



JULIETTE ROGERS: At the moment, if somebody like Richard Flanagan publishes in Australia, he is paid a royalty based on the Australia retail.



At the moment books, if they decide in America to do a cheap edition of that same book, bearing in mind that they have a completely different structure and 260 million people, then that book cannot be brought in and flood the market here.



If it were to do so he gets considerably reduced royalty on that international edition in this market and it would hurt the sales of his Australian book.



That's what it's designed to avoid.



PETER RYAN: So if the parallel importation rules were changed, that would mean that Australia would be flooded with cheap books and local authors would have to be competing with cheap products of their own flooding in from overseas?



JULIETTE ROGERS: That certainly becomes a risk.



PETER RYAN: The Federal Government appears to be supportive though, in the past, of these changes. What sort of lobbying has taken place to try to change their thinking?



JULIETTE ROGERS: Obviously there's been a lot of discussion going on to try and show how important it is to retrain a flourishing literary culture that we have here now.



So yes, there has obviously been a good deal of discussion.



PETER RYAN: So if these changes go through, would they ultimately threaten the creation of Australian stories written in Australia by Australian authors?



JULIETTE ROGERS: People want their kids to be reading stories about their own country, their own animals, their own flora and fauna, and that would have an impact on the ranges and turnover of retailers.



KIM LANDERS: Juliette Rogers, chief executive of the Australian Society of Authors, with our business editor, Peter Ryan.