题型:阅读理解 题类:常考题 难易度:普通
黑龙江省绥化市安达市第七中学2020届高三英语得分训练二试卷
A book is so much more than mere ink and paper. So insist French booksellers, who for nearly four decades successfully persuade the government to keep the forces of the free market at bay. A law passed in 1981 bans the sale of any book at anything other than the price decided by its publisher. Authorities are cracking down on those trying to sell the latest Thomas Piketty or J.K Rowling at a discount.
The fixed-price rule is meant to keep customers loyal to their local bookshop and out of the control of supermarkets and corporations. But the arrival of e-commerce and e-readers has promoted questions worthy of their own tomes(大部头著作). Can you fix the price of a book if it is part of an all-you-can-read subscription service? Are audio-books books at all? And what of authors who self-publish?
Changes have been made to preserve the principle of "one book, one price". In 2011, the rule began to apply to digital tomes. Free delivery by online sellers was prohibited because it implied a subsidy(补贴) on the delivered books (encouraging online sellers to charge only €0.01 for postage). But a new challenge to the policy is proving more difficult to deal with.
Used books are exempted from the pricing rule. Third-party sellers on Amazon are accused of using this as a way to apply forbidden discounts: selling brand-new books as "second hand" to make them cheaper. So fans can purchase a copy of the latest Michel Houellebecq novel Serotonine for 11.71 pounds on Amazon, roughly half of its original price. Its seller claims it is in "perfectly new" condition.
Amazon claims its practices are legal. But books sellers are upset, and their political allies with them. "This is a major concern," said Franck Riester, the culture minister, at a bookseller's conference this week. He says new laws may be needed.
Defenders of the fixed-price principle (which has spread to other parts of Europe) say it helps keep independent bookshops alive. Others are not so sure. Books are expensive in France — an odd way to encourage people to buy more.
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