The Global eBook Report: Current Conditions & Future Projections. Update October 2013

currently expanding with their book and publishing related offers. Obviously, this opens much room for friction and competition.
    Only a few book markets are large enough -notably the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, or the Spanish language market, as well as China- to form centers of gravity in their own right for distinct domestic developments. These markets reflect their own national cultural traditions and identities, resulting in strong national framing conditions. Such markets foster the emergence and, more importantly, sustenance of strong domestic players for both publishing and retail and for services and innovation.
    Examples include the emphasis on the national book culture in Germany or France, with an almost unanimous consensus in the professional book communities there on the value of the book and reading and, as a result, calls for price regulation as well as strong defense of their book cultures against what is defined as external interference .
    Google — via its digitization efforts with libraries and the scanning of copyrighted works — had become an early catalyst for such confrontations, getting local stakeholders out rallying in defense of the American company’s claim to “organize the knowledge of the world,” at least in Germany and France, and in the US, over the past several years. This communal action has resulted in the identification of the digitization of books most broadly as an assault on book culture and on fair compensation for intellectual property. After the downfall of the music industry and the impact of piracy on the music business, lobbying by professional organizations of the publishing industry could find broad support for its claims.
    Digital has been broadly identified with illegal or at least unfair use of the cultural stock, first in Germany and France and then over time in many parts of continental Europe. In the context of an ever-broader concern about digital information technologies, surveillance, and the loss of privacy, ebooks hit continental Europe at a moment when digital or e reading is often considered a threat to citizens’ freedom and Europe’s difficult standing in a globalizing world.
    In such a context, books are swiftly perceived as a strong symbol of resistance, rooted in a genuine European tradition of enlightenment (through books and universal reading and education). At least such is the current argument of the cultural establishment in most European countries, which must not, however, be confused with readers — the majority of whom are well-educated and media-savvy urbanites — who are largely open to the offerings of the Web, including ereaders and ebooks. It is the same cultural elite though that is preoccupied with losing local cultural identity .
    Google’s digitization projects have been confronted by coordinated legal action in several European countries, which has had (particularly in France) strong political support from government institutions. Examples are the French-sponsored national and European digitization projects (e.g., Gallica and Europeana ) and the German digital distribution platform Libreka , as well as legal charges against Google. Interestingly, in several of the largest continental European book markets (but not in the UK), the creation of a digital infrastructure has led to the forming of consortia, of which several have managed to take up a position as either the primary or the secondary leader in the digital service environment. Such is the case in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Sweden.
    Although 2012 and 2013 have seen at least some of those flames put out in scores of settlements, in Europe, notably in France and in Germany, while Amazon is now perceived, at least by traditional representatives of the book business, as the main threat in a landscape shaped primarily by mid-sized or even small family-run businesses.
    In particularly, smaller markets find themselves in a challenging situation. Many have rooted their cultural and national identity in a cultural singularity, which is usually anchored in literature and books. However, those same local elites who represent such a strong local identity, and who are strong readers also tend to be among the first to embrace reading in English, as they are fluent in foreign languages, open to other cultures, and travel widely. Slovenia, Sweden, and Denmark are examples of such markets.

Global contexts: How books become embedded in the digital