Book website fights to keep 30-Day Rule

The campaign against any proposed changes to the 30-Day Rule has been ramped up with the launch of the Australians for Australian Books website, www.ausbooks.com.au

The website is backed by Printing Industries Association of Australia, the Australian Publishers Association, the Australian Society of Authors and a host or industry related groups and individuals including well-known authors such as Frank Moorehouse, Sonya Hartnett and Tim Winton.

Printing Industries' national communications and technical services manager, Joe Kowalewski, encouraged those in the industry to visit the website and show their support.

“The website provides access to information on the Productivity Commission Issues Paper into Copyright Restrictions on the Parallel Importation of Books. This includes to the submissions (which closed off on 20 January 2009), and important support information for the campaign,” he said.

“We are encouraging people across all our industries to visit the site and download the ‘We Support’ logo for display on their own websites and also to join us in our continued lobbying and public awareness efforts.

“This can take the form of writing letters of support for retention of the 30-Day rule to newspaper and magazine editors, calling talk-back radio and lobbying their local Federal politicians.”

Kowalewski said Printing Industries had made a submission to the inquiry, raised the issue with the newly formed Printing Industry Working Group and with several senior Government Ministers.

“We make the point that this current review should finally determine that the arrangements introduced in 1991 and commonly known in the industry as the 30-day rule are working as intended. They are protecting the interests of book readers and book purchasers as well as other stakeholders in the book production value chain.

“These include content creators, the authors, those commissioning the book, the publishers, and those producing the book, the book printers and binders,” he said.

“The local book printing industry is already operating in a highly competitive environment. Import penetration is the highest level of any printing sector and for some book categories such as educational and children’s, the import share of the overall market segment is significantly higher than the domestic production share,” Kowalewski said.

According to Kowalewski, almost $2 billion a year is spent on just under 130 million books. Some 60 per cent of the books purchased are Australian-originated, six times the proportion 50 years ago.

“Without the 30-Day Rule there will be fewer Australian book printers, Australian publishers, Australian books and fewer Australian authors,” he said.