Advocacy

On Thursday, January 15, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed the recently passed Main Street Fairness legislation into law, thereby leveling the playing field for the state’s Main Street retailers.

In the wake of the horrifying massacre of the staff of Charlie Hebdo, ABFE Director Chris Finan looks at the courage it takes to stand up for free speech and the challenges facing booksellers.

As part of a social media campaign launched on Monday by ABA and ABFE, booksellers around the country are demonstrating both their solidarity with the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack and their support for free speech.

ABA is encouraging all bookstore members to complete the annual Independent Business Survey. A link to the survey was sent to stores in an e-mail from ABA CEO Oren Teicher on January 7.

In response to news that Amazon had fired its Vermont affiliates because of a 2011 e-fairness law that could potentially kick in this year, ABA and Advocates for Independent Business have launched an e-mail campaign asking Vermont indie retailers to contact Gov. Peter Shumlin in support of the law.

ABA is encouraging all member stores to take part in the annual post-holiday survey conducted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and the Advocates for Independent Business coalition.

In late December, sales tax fairness proponents in Michigan won a big victory when the state legislature voted to pass e-fairness legislation.

Sony Pictures, which decided to pull The Interview from widespread distribution after threats from cyber-hackers, “should take a page from America’s booksellers,” wrote Ken Paulson, the president of the First Amendment Center, dean of the College of Mass Communication at Middle Tennessee State University, and a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors, in a December 19 USA TODAY column.

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression has been reconstituted as the American Booksellers for Free Expression Group at ABA, starting January 1, 2015. With the change come a new address, telephone number, and e-mail address.

On December 4, bookstore members should have received an e-mail from ABA with updated information regarding the recent notice sent to them by the Visa/MasterCard interchange class settlement administrator.

Late last week, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner dashed any hopes Main Street retailers had of getting a federal e-fairness solution passed during the lame-duck Congressional session.

Seventeen small business owners representing 21 stores in Ohio have sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner to express their strong disappointment regarding his lack of support for sales tax fairness.

On December 8, the U.S. Supreme Court considered a challenge brought by the Direct Marketing Association regarding a 2010 Colorado law that requires out-of-state retailers to either collect and remit sales tax for purchases made by Colorado residents or to inform their Colorado customers that they owe use tax on the purchases they have made.

With just a few weeks left in the congressional session, the Advocates for Independent Business is urging indie businesses to participate in a grassroots social media campaign in support of e-fairness.

At the Miami Book Fair International panel discussion “Do Monsters Live in Our Laptops?,” book industry experts, including ABA CEO Oren Teicher, discussed whether the promise of digitization as a democratizing force has instead led to large corporations dominating the book industry.