Fixed Book Price Law

In 2014, the Korean government introduced the fixed book price law.

Under the law, book prices could not be discounted by more than 10 percent.

This prevented publishers and bookstores from holding big sales like they had done before.

The government says the law is needed because many customers avoid buying books at regular prices.

They only buy books when sold at a big discount.

This situation hurts the profit of publishers and authors, the government says.

Also, the supporters of the law say only larger book companies are able to offer big discounts.

Smaller publishers and bookstores cannot afford to lower their prices in the same way.

So, the supporters say that forbidding higher discounts helps make the competition fair.

However, some Koreans say the fixed book price law is not working.

They say publishers and bookstores have lost many customers since the law was made in 2014.

At higher prices, people are simply buying fewer books.

Furthermore, these critics of the law say bookstores sometimes need to sell off older books quickly.

They have to get rid of unpopular books and make space for new books.

However, they are unable to do this without making the price more attractive.

 

• prevent A from B  A가 B하지 못하게 하다  forbid fər|bɪd 금(지)하다 (↔allow, permit) forbidding fər|bɪdɪŋ 험악한, 으스스한