Slashdot Mirror
B&N Yanks DC Titles After Exclusive Amazon Deal
theodp writes "In response to DC Entertainment's agreement to exclusively offer digital versions of certain titles in Amazon Kindle format, Nook maker Barnes & Noble has begun pulling DC Entertainment's graphic novels off its shelves. Confirming the decision, B&N said in a statement, 'To sell and promote the physical book in our store showrooms, and not have the eBook available for sale would undermine our promise to Barnes & Noble customers to make available any book, anywhere, anytime.' Nice to see the pair is still able to keep their feud fresh on the 11th anniversary of the 1-Click patent infringement lawsuit."
Exclusive deals aren't about labor - they're about exploiting copyright to limit consumer choice.
The problem with ebooks isn't labor at all. Google has tons of books digitized and made available for searching at no cost to publishers at all, but publishers sue them because they don't like not being the gatekeepers.
If DC just emailed B&N a .mobi file I'm sure they'd be happy to convert it so that they can sell it.
And, ultimately, if you take anything to the extreme it often breaks down. That doesn't mean that promoting platform-neutral formats is a bad thing. We shouldn't avoid making stuff available on 99% of the hardware out there just because it won't run on a toaster.
B&N doesn't lock users into using their ebooks on only B&N sanctioned products, which is ultimately what this is about. I happen to have a Nook and Amazon is the only major ebookstore that doesn't allow me to buy from them and use the books without conversion and possibly stripping the DRM. B&N uses the same protection scheme and format as most of the ebookstores and so if I get sick of using a Nook, my next ebook reader could be made by somebody else entirely.
Ultimately, I have a feeling that it's more about Amazon using this deal to prevent their customers from using the books legally, remember B&N isn't just a book seller now, B&N sells ereaders and I'm guessing that they want to protect that as well.