Legislation guarding the maintenance of free business competition has obviously had some preventive effects also in the culture industries by curtailing the formation of price-setting monopolies and cartels. The Finnish agency responsible for the implementation of this legislation (Finnish Competition Authority) undertook e.g. an investigation (1998-1999) into a major fusion of the leading Finnish media company with a major publishing house and a company of kiosks distributing books and journals. In some other EU countries the EU directives that aim at preventing competition restrictions have jeopardised the prevailing systems of setting fixed book prices by publishers as these systems have been interpreted as a cartel-based type restriction of competition. The fixed book price system was abolished in Finland in 1972.
Aug
03
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