Skip the mandatory discount on digital books, publishers and booksellers applaud

The mandatory discount, at 50% of the cover price, for textbooks for schools and universities in digital version is excluded from the measure: the Budget Committee of the Chamber has asked for its removal for "regulatory" reasons. Satisfied publishers and booksellers, who in recent days had asked for the cancellation of the provision, deemed "useless and harmful", destined to burden the supply chain without guaranteeing real benefits to families. Indeed, according to booksellers in particular, the risk would have been that of a boomerang for consumers, forced to print the digital text independently and therefore, in the end, to spend more.

"We are satisfied", says the president of the Italian Publishers Association Innocenzo Cipolletta. "We remain convinced of the impracticability of a provision that would have favored piracy", he adds, once again defining "the obligation to grant a license for the printing of a digital text as illegitimate, in light of national and European regulations for the protection of copyright". For the AIE president, "the best way to guarantee the right to education" remains "the increase in resources available to less well-off families". A front on which the IEA hopes that "the long-open discussion with the Minister of Education and Merit Giuseppe Valditara will continue and come to fruition".

Ali-Confcommercio also applauds the excerpt: "We obviously remain available - states the president, Paolo Ambrosini - to identify all possible solutions to address the problems linked to school publishing, aware of the need to provide answers to the needs of families and schools as we have long requested".

"As we have highlighted in recent days, it would have been an innovation without a real economic benefit for users, since it would have introduced a product onto the market that would not have been more convenient than the books already available today", echoes Antonio Terzi, president of Sil Confesercenti who however warns: "This step backwards does not make us forget the urgency of opening a discussion with the institutions. It is necessary to work together with the entire supply chain to identify proposals capable of making the already existing tools to support demand more effective, broadening their scope and allowing local bookshops to compete in a sustainable way, continuing to play their fundamental role in the territory".

Federcartolai also spoke out against the rule: "Only the moment in which the family pays is moved", the organisation's comment. And then "the way of studying is called into question. As stationers we have seen it for years: digital at school is a useful tool if integrated, not if it replaces".