Comic books and manga novels in a Tokyo bookstore, March 24, 2022 (AFP/Archives/Charly TRIBALLEAU)
The regulator of the law on the single price of the book in France indicated on Tuesday that it had taken up the question of digital comics sold in virtual currency, in anticipation of the arrival of the South Korean application Piccoma.
The subject mainly concerns Asian comics, namely Japanese (manga) and Korean (webtoons), readable on specialized platforms for prices sometimes expressed in digital tokens.
It arises particularly before the arrival in France of the South Korean Kakao and his application Piccoma, which would allow reading on mobile manga or webtoons also available in paper version.
This platform, which claims four million daily users in Japan, will publish its first content in May. It aims to “be number one” in France, told Le Figaro in March its Europe director, Hyung-Rae Kim.
The regulator, the Book Mediator, announced on its website that it had taken the initiative to launch a “consultation” of the sector.
He wants to “find out if micro-transaction business models in the form of tokens can be applied to digital books subject to a fixed price regime”.
On Piccoma, for example, the economic model would consist in offering a few chapters of a book, then giving two choices to unlock the following ones: pay in classic currency (0.50 euro per chapter), or wait a certain number of hours to accumulate digital tokens.
However, since 2011, the law has been adapted to apply a single price to digital books identical to their paper version (single price also in all points of sale since a law of 1981).
Competitors launched themselves before Piccoma on this French webtoon market, applying various economic models, including Iznéo (Fnac-Darty), Verytoon (editions Delcourt), Glénat Manga Max (editions Glénat), Webtoon Factory (editions Dupuis), or even Webtoon by South Korean Naver.
© 2022 AFP
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