Slashdot Mirror
Apple Holds Firm As Publishers Settle With DoJ Over e-Book Pricing
Nerval's Lobster writes "The U.S. Department of Justice has just settled with book publisher Macmillan in an ongoing case over the price of e-books, bringing its number of settlements with big-name publishers up to five. Justice claims that those five publishers, along with Apple, agreed to 'raise retail e-book prices and eliminate price competition, substantially increasing prices paid by consumers.' Apple competes fiercely in the digital-media space against Amazon, which often discounts the prices of Kindle e-books as a competitive gambit; although all five publishers earn significant revenues from sales of Kindle e-books, Amazon's massive popularity among book-buyers — coupled with the slow decline of bricks-and-mortar bookstores — gives it significant leverage when it comes to lowering those e-book prices as it sees fit. But Justice and Apple seem determined to keep their court date later this year."
...along with a DRM scheme that causes problems (see the 1984 controversy) are why I keep reading dead-tree editions.
DVD and Blu-Ray have DRM that's somewhat nonsensical, but the media are cheap. I can excuse some of the stupidity because I'm not paying a lot for it.
E-books are too expensive for not having a physical copy.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Which is to say I think that I don't think that the price is the critical factor here. Over time we are going to see more open sales and less lockin. This will happen as publishers depend less on printing paper and more on quality books.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Apple have done nothing wrong. Their ebook deal is exactly the same as their App Store deal. The person/company that puts the book/app on the store decides the price. Apple get 30% of it.
Did the publishers agree to turn over evidence against Apple as part of their settlements?
Apple really should settle. They can afford to pay whatever, and they don't need the bad PR.
Publishers should be able to price their product at whatever levels they want. They got into trouble when they got together to agree on set prices.
Ebooks are an interesting thing. The Apple and Kindle Ebooks seem to be licenses to view the content, unless you illegally break the DRM of the content and load it into callibre or a similar software. You can't buy an ebook and then sell it when you are done. You can't buy a used ebook :)
Physical textbooks are getting that way too, coming with 1 time licenses to study problems that your teacher may require, which eliminates the used text book market. Ultimately, they are adapting their profit model to extract the most they can out of the existing market, similar to how Dice hosts advertisements on slashdot and calls them news articles.
I would hope that these trends push people to abandon these platforms, but history tells me that most people will stick with it because its good enough (some people gradually edging out of the market, but they don't matter). Will the people sick of these moves make their own platform? Hopefully.
What a fucking mess. I'm glad I still read actual books.
I don't respond to AC's.
There's a much better way to avoid being gouged for books. Pirate.
Ebooks are tiny and there is apparently a quite active ebook piracy scene. You can find torrents that are VAST archives of thousands of books (of just one genre!) and they're smaller than your average HD movie rip.
The ebook prices publishers put forward are an absurd, laughable fantasy designed to protect their old business models as long as possible. (And to foster the idea that their high prices are somehow normal)
I can get 10-12 dollars for a hot new release from a well known author, but 10 for the 3rd book in a serries of 12 in a not particularly critically acclaimed written in the 70s? Yeah fucking right. And that's even if it's for sale. The biggest complaint by far I have about ebook sellers is lack of selection and worse, inconsistent selection. The pirates have everyone beat here. Ancient copyright rules make this industry a farce.
Really this case has a lot more depth to it than just the old Apple/Aamazon angle. Everyone shoudl read more details as to what this is all about.
It was about the publishers (and Apple) trying to keep the market more open to competition - an excerpt:
"While the deal caused prices to go up for some new releases and bestsellers, according to Schumer, the average ebook price actually went down from $9 to $7....It was actually Amazon - not Apple or the publishers - that held too much market power and was using a predatory pricing to drive the publishers out of business. In a comment on the settlement filed by Barnes & Noble, the company argues that without the shift in pricing strategy from the publishers, it would have been unable to develop its own competing e-reader. "
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
On the other hand, given the egregious awards for downloading just a few movies or songs - imagine the financial penalty for a collection of a thousand books.
Everyone is just lucky the book industry is not going after pirates the same way the music industry has.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not all ebooks are overpriced or have DRM.
I bought a Google e-book recently and used their instructions to convert it and download it to my old Nook reader. I think Google's will work on nearly any device.
Actually, some Amazon eBooks don't have DRM. I still don't think you're allowed to sell them when you're done, though.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
In Europe, THEY ARE SOLD.
Indeed, if in the USA it's only licensed, then you have rights to read it from wherever you want (TPB for example) since you have a License to the content. You can also sell that license. Lastly, you have the right to a full refund.
But in the EU it's sold, even if they call it a license, that license is STILL a sale.
They were agreeing on a set agency pricing.
See normal pricing is wholesale, meaning that I decide what I need to charge for a product, and I sell it to stores for that much (usually with quantity discounts). Then the retailer is free to price it as they wish. They can mark it up a ton and try to make big unit profits, they can sell it at a loss as a loss leader. I am happy either way because I am getting what I want per copy.
Agency pricing is different. Here the manufacturer tells the retailer what price they must sell the final unit for. They not only set the price the retailer must pay them, but the price the retailer must charge customers.
Agency pricing is pretty scummy period in my opinion, and is fairly rare. Here not only was it being done, but as a collusion.
Then, to make matters worse, it was done due to the request of a retailer. Apple wanted agency pricing so they didn't have to compete with Amazon on price. They were having their high margins enforced on all retailers, at the expense of the consumers.
What about Tech books? Exchange, PowerShell, many others. All of the different sellers keep the prices within a couple dollars of each other, which is fine for new books, but even the used books are within 5-10% usually. Hard to find one under $40 and they are usually much higher than that.
Apple and the publishers did this to make money
Of course they did.
Because Amazon destroying all other publishers means they make very little money. But do you think that's better, or worse for readers?
Amazon charging less so they can lock the whole market into the Kindle platform for eBooks is not exactly an altruistic move either you know.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The library has always been my first choice for books, but something like Spotify for books would move the library to 2nd...
He who laughs lasts.
Publishers should be able to price their product at whatever levels they want.
Distributors should be able to price their product at whatever levels they want.
It's one thing for a publisher to set the price when they sell to a distributor. It's quite another thing for publishers to dictate the price when a distributor sells to a consumer.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
My libary lends e-books.
Also, doesn’t Amazon Prime kind of do this – letting you lend 1 book a month?
I'm not saying you never see it, the audio world likes it to an extent, Denon does it, but it is not very common. Most manufacturers decide what they want to make per unit and price accordingly. What the retailer does is of no concern to them.
Agency pricing is legal, but not to collude on it.
It was about the publishers (and Apple) trying to keep the market more open to competition - an excerpt:
Bless you sweetness, you do know that this is nothing to do with *competition*...its the opposite of competition its a cartel. As for Apple...because you don't really care about the publishers is in it for "most favored nation", that means *nobody* can compete on price with Apple.
In fact this is anticompetitive....its why the DoJ is breathing down Apples Neck
Apple and the publishers did this to make money
Of course they did.
Because Amazon destroying all other publishers means they make very little money. But do you think that's better, or worse for readers?
Amazon charging less so they can lock the whole market into the Kindle platform for eBooks is not exactly an altruistic move either you know.
You mean instead of *middle men* bleeding artists dry, and electronic store fronts taking massive mark-ups on Authors Books. That sounds wonderful.
As for the whole kindle thing. I'm pro a move to open devices and formats, and look forward to Apple relinquishing its patents on its closed formats [and it embracing open ones flac and webm being good starts] , and opening its devices to Alternative store-fronts *including* kindles who currently use a web-app :)
I Agree with you I think boycott Apple until they open their [not your] platform.
Exactly. Once you sell me something, it's mine. I can sell it at a price of my choice.
Put aside your hate of Apple or Amazon for a minute.
Amazon is using a distributor model where they would price the books and the publisher has to accept the sale price set by Amazon. This is a weird agreement that most publishers would enter only under duress (the threat of losing sales from an all powerful distributor) because it shifts even more power to Amazon.
In the short term this model benefits consumers at the cost to the publisher and other channels. Now publishers are doing pretty well because of the e-book revolution. Their revenues might be dropping, but their costs are dropping even faster, so their profits are going up. It's not the end of the world if some of those profits are squeezed out by Amazon and delivered to consumers as savings when they shop at Amazon.
However, in the long term, this is a winner-takes-all model. By that I mean distributors that have immense scale (and Amazon in scale is even bigger than Walmart) continue to grow sales while smaller, newer channels that cannot negotiate the same model can never get off the ground. In addition, publishers will make so little money they they will start squeezing authors, who will eventually start direct publishing through Amazon. I'm certain that this will put Barnes and Nobles out of business, for example, and that would not be good for consumers IMO.
Now look at Apple's agency model. If this model were prevalent across publishing, there would be competition at two levels. The first level of competition would be around the efficiency of distribution - a distributor that could charge less than 30% could gain more sales at the expense of Apple (because they can simply develop an iOS app and sell books offline for consumption on Apple products like the B&N and Kindle apps do today). The second level of competition would be where it has always been - between publishers centered around the caliber of their authors and the quality of their books. Barnes and Noble will likely stay in business if this model is prevalent.
The agency model has no active participant like Amazon busting up the unfair pricing of e-books compared to dead-tree books. But I think that that price collusion needs to be broken up through existing anti-trust laws or by new publishers who see an electronic-only publishing model as a tremendous opportunity to compete with legacy publishers burdened with the cost structure of publishing paper books.
Both are total rip-offs.
It doesn't matter how little it has helped the music industry. What matters is that the music industry has destroyed quite a few lives. And the publishing industry COULD do the same if it chose, I would be wary of putting myself into the middle of a very likely action.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Publishers should be able to price their product at whatever levels they want.
You are right. But publishers shouldn't be able to specify the price the middle sales to the public.
Unfortunately prices remain high and I remain to read in a old way. Libraries can count on me!