Japanese Publishers plan group to fight Amazon
By Hideharu Nishi, The Asahi Shimbun
14 January, 2010

Twenty-one publishing houses in Japan will form an organization in February to stave off potential threats to their profits from Amazon.com Inc. and other service providers in the burgeoning e-book market.

Plans for the group, tentatively named Nihon Denshi-Shoseki Shuppansha Kyokai (Japan electronic book publishers' association), have been formed as Amazon intends to market a Japanese version of its Kindle e-reader in the near future.

The publishers are concerned they may be left out if Japanese authors give Amazon exclusive rights to publish e-versions of their books on promises of higher royalties than in the case of print books.

The publishers, who argue that books are works jointly created by authors and editors, plan to ask writers' groups, such as the Japan Writers' Association and the Japan P.E.N. Club, for cooperation on the venture.

Under Japan's Copyright Law, authors have the right to decide who can publish the electronic versions of their books.

"If Amazon holds direct talks with authors and obtains the rights to publish the electronic versions of their books, publishing houses that issued their print versions cannot do anything," said an executive of a major publisher.

"By talking with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, we want to make it legally possible for both authors and publishers to have the rights for the second use of books, including their digitization," said Yoshinobu Noma, a Kodansha vice president.

Excluding manga comic books, the 21 companies, including giants Kodansha Ltd., Shogakukan Inc. and Shinchosha Publishing Co., have a 90-percent share of the domestic market for e-books that can be read on mobile phones and personal computers.

The organization will try to create a new contract format between authors, publishers and e-book service providers.

Specifically, the publishers plan to establish a system in which they obtain consent from authors to digitize their books, and then sell the electronic versions to e-book service providers.

The Japanese e-book market was worth about 46.4 billion yen ($508.5 million) in fiscal 2008.

Some estimates have the market soaring to 300 billion yen in fiscal 2013, as the popularity of Kindle and other e-readers spreads.