Book-pricing Collusion

[rowyn]

Whoa.

 

The US Justice department is threatening suit against Apple and five major publishers, alleging collusion to raise book prices.

 

This is a fascinating situation to me. I do find it hard to see the whole agency-model thing as anything other than collusion to force Amazon to stop discounting e-books.  OTOH, it's not exactly clear that letting Amazon discount their way into the position of sole retail outlet for ebooks is the path to less monopoly power.

 

I don't know much about the law in this case, or what outcome I am rooting for.  But I'll be interested to see how it goes.

Comments

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

It looks like you need to edit your post for formatting!

[rowyn]

LJ's Android client leaves something to be desired. c.c. I think the post's working now, thanks!

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes it does. I stopped using it. Grrrr.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

The way I understand it (which is pretty vague, I mostly looked into it when MS was being sued) is that collusion is always illegal, but using your market power to drive other people out of business is only illegal if you have a monopoly.

The laws are intended to encourage competition, basically -- but suddenly if it looks like one person is going to actually *win* they do a 180 and start punishing it instead.

[telnar.livejournal.com]

When the abstract situation is ambiguous like this one, I root for the scenario which is better for today's consumers, which is clearly Amazon's preferred business model (where booksellers can discount freely). Markets evolve quickly. There's no guarantee that even if Amazon has an evil plan to gouge everyone after they crush the competition, that they will succeed. New competitors can arise Phoenix-like as technology changes so I'm willing to take my chances on Amazonian dominance. eBooks are still a small fraction of the total market for books. eBook distribution may be very different by the time paper is vanquished.

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

I predicted this back when they strong-armed Amazon into the "agency" pricing model. No way was the Justice Department going to let manufacturers set mandatory retail prices, no way were they going to let them prevent retailers from competing on price.

[terrana.livejournal.com]

This is exactly why we have lawyers and judges, I think. It's nice to see them being used properly rather than on frivolous suits.