Bookbuyer's
Bookend
In Washington last month the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice filed a salt against 21 American publishers, including the, US subsidiaries of Penguin and the Oxforu, University Press. The publishers are charge' with "conspiring in restraint of interstate and foreign commerce" and for good measure the Department is naming as co-conspirator the • British Publishers Association — though the PA, is not being called upon to defend itself. This last piece of clemency is very civil on the part of tbe American Government, but some readers mighif t be wondering why it should be concerning its,e' with the affairs of a British association in t'`' first place. The answer —though it is no answer at all — that the US Department of Justice does !Int appear to like the PA's Market Agreenient' Broadly speaking the Agreement involves an undertaking by individual British publishers na to consider buying British rights in an American book without also buying rights for countries in the British Commonwealth as it was politicallY constituted in 1947; a recent revision of this Agreement means that, under certain conar tions, British publishers will now accept British and Commonwealth rights without Australia. For their part the American publishers have America (with a population four times that 01' the UK) plus a few dependencies of her own, like the Phillipines. All this may suggest the unacceptable face Of imperialism — indeed, there are those "cloWn under" who suggest it all the time — but it is a rather heat way of keeping a tidy English; speaking world. It prevents the expensive an" irritating confusion of having two editions of the same title competing with each other, and I makes for a straightforward copyright situation.; One of the reasons British Publishers defen,a their 'Commonwealth' territory so vigorouslY is that it is of course terribly important to thern exports represent Over 40 per cent of their total business and Australia alone accounts for abtt half of that. Without these markets, the believes that some British publishers woulabe forced to close down, that fewer books get published and that prices would shoot UP 0" those books which were published. So the British publishers cling to their Market Agree. ment, MQ.St American publishers — who bY law f are not allowed to discuss collective matters 0a this sort — accept that there will always be similar territorial clause in contracts betwee; British publishers and themselves — just as the', often is in other spheres of commerce. For tha; enforced acquiescence, they are now being sae by their own Government. In naming the British Publishers Association, as a co-conspirator the Justice Department seems to think that the PA has been conniviri,ge with American publishers, which is of cOar',, nonsense. If the PA has been doing anf, 'conniving' at all, it is merely with its ov/1 members — each of whom negotiates individt!. contracts with individual American publisheto The US Department of Justice no doubt has keep itself amused (life must be rather dull ri°„e that Nixon has gone) but one would have that there were better and less expena!ke ways of doing so than to raise Cain over effects of a private agreement between forelagy': publishers in a country 3,500 miles avv,980 Bookbuyer will return to the subject in his when, if precedent is anything to go hY' Cog the court's t ridiculous leimgael. obloquy will still be accu h PYI
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