Minister of Culture and Arts, Malika Bendouda, presented today, Wednesday, during a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad and held via videoconference, two draft executive decrees related to the pricing of books and the sale of electronic books, according to a statement issued by Prime Minister’s office.
The first draft executive decree is related to guaranteeing the unified price of books and protecting the consumer, as it requires that the public be informed of the selling price of books. Although the process of setting the price by the publisher and importer is carried out freely, the publisher must print the price of the book he publishes on the fourth page of the book cover, while the importer must clearly indicate the price of the imported book in accordance with the provisions contained in this draft decree.
The importance of clarifying the relationship between the writer, publisher and distributor, and encouraging authorship and translation, was agreed on during the meeting of the Government Council, because Algeria is in dire need of making the desired change with the current situation of the book market.
The second draft executive decree is related to selling books in the electronic way, and it includes the paper and digital book and all the services that complement the process of selling the book in the electronic way, especially the periodic subscriptions in electronic libraries.
This text aims to harmonize between the Electronic Commerce Law of 2018 and the Book Law of 2015 in order to protect publishers from piracy and plagiarism.
During this meeting, projects of executive decrees and presentations related to the sectors of the interior, local communities, urban development, energy and mines, foreign affairs, digitization and statistics were studied and discussed.
