The agreement uses the phrase "any similar edition, version or release." Amazon will take you to court if they think there's money in it for them, and it will be up to a court to decide if your "Amazon version" is "any similar edition, version or release."
AC has a lot of facts wrong and simply didn't read my post. Please don't read the post I am replying to without reading my post, as my post contains the excerpts from the actual agreement (which Business Insider failed to consider) which you actually need to make an informed decision.
Now for the AC I am replying to:
That this troubles you at all is quite disturbing to me. If this is not illegal, it at least should be. If you don't like the way someone does business, don't do business with them, otherwise put them all on the same playing field. Those that can sell your product for you are working for you, and paying your bills.
Please interpret "troubles me" as "troubles me about doing business with." While I am a free market advocate insofar as I think Amazon, like Apple here, is imposing restrictions on the market which hurt the consumer, what I was expressing was reasons I, and other members of the Slashdot community, may want to stay away from the Amazon market.
The parts you excerpted of my post express exactly what troubles me about them, and you appear to have extrapolated beyond them.
In reply to AC: Please read the EULA or the parts I excerpted in my post at the top! "List Price" is constrained by other paragraphs you haven't factored in!
Kjella is right! There is ambiguity in the terms concerning what the "list price" is. It says it is either the "the lowest list price or suggested retail price for such App (including any similar edition, version or release) available on any Similar Service or the lowest actual price at which you make such App available for sale through any Similar Service"
IANAL, so I really don't know how the "or" operator will work here. Kjella's suspicion of a legal loop between your contracts and prices with multiple vendors could force you ultimately to list for $0.00, though I doubt this is a deliberate move by Amazon, most likely it is legal incompetence!
Let's not kid ourselves. Amazon will not sell at a loss. I don't care how leet you think their MBAs' customer spreadsheets are, there is no situation they will do this in.
What AC also refuses to acknowledge here, somehow while even discussing a situation where your product gets "bundled," is the possibility that Amazon could determine what fraction of the "bundle" your App is worth.
But let's be real about this: Amazon won't bundle. The language of the agreement makes it hard for them to bundle, unless they are the customer.
Section 5g does say this:
Our Operations. We have sole discretion to determine all features and operations of this program and to set the retail price and other terms on which we sell Apps
TLDR; Amazon prevents you from selling for cheaper on other outlets, or giving away free downloads or FOSS if you want to charge on the Amazon Appstore.
That is very easy to get round: produce an almost identical product that has a different model/version/... number and sell that at a different price.
This trick is played all the time on the high street, shops that say something like:
price match on the same item
often know that they are quite safe since the fridge/hi-fi/camera/... manufacturer produces an item with a unique model number that is only sold to them, in reality it is no different to the model sold next door. OK: only the large chains can do that trick.
I disagree. The liability to the store in your scenario is contingent upon legal action. Even if a customer was angry enough that the store didn't live up to his/her perception of the store's promotion, they would only be subject to the penalties for laws governing wrongful advertising.
In the case of trying to "trick" amazon this way, you've entered a contract with them, and possibly tens of thousands of real dollars are at stake
Also, you should actually read the part of the agreement, which was in my original post. Here it is again, with the important part highlighted.
List Price. The “List Price” for an App is an amount that does not exceed, at any time, the lowest list price or suggested retail price for such App (including any similar edition, version or release)
I realized my original post was too long already so I avoided pointing out these kinds of things there, but we should all be speculating and researching (if we're that interested) how the courts will define things like "similar edition, version, or release."
Business Insider and author of TFA, Dan Frommer, got several details wrong.
TLDR; Amazon prevents you from selling for cheaper on other outlets, or giving away free downloads or FOSS if you want to charge on the Amazon Appstore.
(Snipped down.) When developers will be able to set a suggested retail price ('MSRP'). Then Amazon will set the retail price. Developers will get to take home the standard 70% of the app's retail price (what the app sells for) or 20% of the MSRP (what the developer thinks it should sell for), whichever is greater.
What does "MSRP" mean?
In the retail business (that's where the "R" in "MSRP" comes from) retailers make speculations on how many units they can sell at what prices over what period of time, compare to actual or theoretical negotiated bulk prices for purchasing from a manufacturer or wholesaler, and then decide whether or not it meets their profit expectations. It can be a little more complex than this, but this is the gist of it.
Well, the article linked to by Slashdot does not help you find Amazon's justification for using the terms "MSRP" or "SRP." My research, which may be incomplete, indicates that Amazon is not using this term, and rightly so. Here is an excerpt from Amazon's Appstore Distribution Agreement, which you can see in PDF form here (MD5 checksum 15636c42ecfb47dc819445ad3214eac4, just in case they change the file in the future without renaming it.)
Section 2a of Amazon's Appstore Distribution Agreement
For each sale of an App, we will pay you a royalty (“Royalty”) equal to the greater of (i) 70% of the purchase price or (ii) 20% of the List Price.
Ok, so what we're actually dealing with is called a "List Price" in the legal agreement to supply Amazon's new App Store. This is a more correct term, because an MSRP is legally unrelated to the price a retailer secures from their supplier for units of the product. It's clear though that this "List Price" bears legal weight in determining the PPU (price per unit) of the product from the supplier (or, developer, I guess.)
So at this point what we have established is that the "List Price" in fact has no bearing on what the app will be sold for, but is defined to be five times the minimum PPU the developer is paid.
Here is a really important detail that Business Insider and author of TFA, Dan Frommer, glossed over:
..if your app is $10 in the official Android market and $10 in Apple's iPhone app store, but $5 at Amazon's store, it could hurt sales in your other channels where you get more revenue per sale.
Somehow, even managing to discuss the situation in which you set your prices differently for different sales outlets, Business Insider and Dan Frommer miss this juicy tidbit:
Section 5i of Amazon's Appstore Distribution Agreement
The “List Price” for an App is an amount that does not exceed, at any time, the lowest list price or suggested retail price for such App (including any similar edition, version or release) available on any Similar Service or the lowest actual price at which you make such App available for sale through any Similar Service. You will update the List Price for each App as necessary to ensure that it meets the requirements of this section 5i.
"List Price," then, is not simply five times the minimum PPU you wish to be paid (which would effectively allow you to actually set the price you want to sell at, which would be nice) but is in fact a function of what price you are offering, but a function of the price your app is available for at different outlets! This means if your app is on multiple outlets, Amazon takes away your ability to set your price through the List Price, and even
"...the judge said laws were not in place in Ireland to enforce disconnections over illegal downloads... this gap in legislation meant Ireland was not complying with European law."
"The judge made it very clear that an injunction would be morally justified but that the Irish legislature had failed in its obligation to confer on the courts the right to grant such injunctions, unlike other EU states."
"Irish Recorded Music Association director-general Dick Doyle said his office would pressure the Government to reform the law in favour of record labels."
About eight hours ago I noticed Boing Boing has been running a gamedev contest that has attracted several Javascript/Canvas games. They seem to have sound using the "Sound" element that works in Firefox.
If only there were a way the public could verify these claims... has anyone ever thought of developing software that exposes its source codes so that users can explore and improve their programs?
Youtube is pretty much unwatchable now, between the annoying boxes people put on videos to the annoying ads. I may never find out about their new features, because I don't go there anymore.
When YouTube ditches Flash for Javascript and HTML5 video, we'll all be able to hack YouTube with browser add-ons like Greasemonkey to disable the annoying boxes people add to videos when/if we want, or move them so they don't obscure the video.
As we become more dependent on these systems, we should make sure they are at least as robust as good old-fashioned know-how.
They already are at least as robust as good old-fashioned know-how, because the system supplies advisory information to a human with a brain.
But the human brain is becoming more dependent on this system to know how to get around. A lot of people these days know one route to get between point a and point b. If humans get used to being able to ask a computer that can't be clever in an emergency, then it will be a problem when we are dependent upon it, not before.
The same thing happened to me, but I turned around and found another way without Google's help.
What makes this a problem in my mind is that Google Maps doesn't offer a "detour me" feature that allows you to easily avoid specified nodes in the commute graph. My Garmin GPS had this feature and driving all over the Western half of the US for many months I can tell you it was an indispensable feature.
A good detour feature is a really necessary feature in an emergency situation. As we become more dependent on these systems, we should make sure they are at least as robust as good old-fashioned know-how. Being a firm believe in technology, I'm sure Google Maps could in fact surpass our own robustness and incorporate features to make emergencies even safer for people, but right now Google Maps seems to be focused on telling you how to go some place where you'll spend money.
It offends me more than it would most Tibetan Buddhists! How can you market this "phone?" It looks to me like a phone with some very simple software installed. The controlling powers that make a phone with specific software on it into a commodity worth seeking after are people I find very offensive indeed!
Are there any plans to punish companies that went along with this? Sure, they could argue they were strong-armed into it by Intel but that's no comfort for AMD and the sales they'll have lost.
AMD may even benefit from this. They may have in fact come to an agreement with Intel about how this would be done. AMD may have seen more sales, but then there would have actually been competition, and that means more product for a lower price! Yikes!!!
Um... seriously?
If they know the specific customer they wouldn't need to install the trojan.
It's not disclosed how the "trojan" is loaded onto the perpetrator's system, however getting that system to request and execute your code cuts through what is potentially a very hairy situation: who knows how many layers of abstraction the perp is using to hide from traces.
The article is very light on details, but I take it the idea is that more power would translate to higher clock frequencies or higher data throughput and the like.
I think an easier approach is for the scheduler to query the battery power before and after each task gets its shot at CPU time. If an application is using more than its power allocation, simply schedule it shorter and/or fewer turns on the CPU.
The article also fails to mention whether this mobile OS is capable of multitasking. If it is, then presumably the power settings for a given application would apply to the timeslices during which it is running.
There are two pages to the article, and it's quite clear that it supports some form of multitasking.
Slashdot Mirror
The agreement uses the phrase "any similar edition, version or release." Amazon will take you to court if they think there's money in it for them, and it will be up to a court to decide if your "Amazon version" is "any similar edition, version or release."
AC has a lot of facts wrong and simply didn't read my post. Please don't read the post I am replying to without reading my post, as my post contains the excerpts from the actual agreement (which Business Insider failed to consider) which you actually need to make an informed decision.
Now for the AC I am replying to:
Please interpret "troubles me" as "troubles me about doing business with." While I am a free market advocate insofar as I think Amazon, like Apple here, is imposing restrictions on the market which hurt the consumer, what I was expressing was reasons I, and other members of the Slashdot community, may want to stay away from the Amazon market.
The parts you excerpted of my post express exactly what troubles me about them, and you appear to have extrapolated beyond them.
In reply to AC: Please read the EULA or the parts I excerpted in my post at the top! "List Price" is constrained by other paragraphs you haven't factored in!
Kjella is right! There is ambiguity in the terms concerning what the "list price" is. It says it is either the "the lowest list price or suggested retail price for such App (including any similar edition, version or release) available on any Similar Service or the lowest actual price at which you make such App available for sale through any Similar Service"
IANAL, so I really don't know how the "or" operator will work here. Kjella's suspicion of a legal loop between your contracts and prices with multiple vendors could force you ultimately to list for $0.00, though I doubt this is a deliberate move by Amazon, most likely it is legal incompetence!
Let's not kid ourselves. Amazon will not sell at a loss. I don't care how leet you think their MBAs' customer spreadsheets are, there is no situation they will do this in.
What AC also refuses to acknowledge here, somehow while even discussing a situation where your product gets "bundled," is the possibility that Amazon could determine what fraction of the "bundle" your App is worth.
But let's be real about this: Amazon won't bundle. The language of the agreement makes it hard for them to bundle, unless they are the customer.
Section 5g does say this:
But that isn't enough, though IANAL
I disagree. The liability to the store in your scenario is contingent upon legal action. Even if a customer was angry enough that the store didn't live up to his/her perception of the store's promotion, they would only be subject to the penalties for laws governing wrongful advertising.
In the case of trying to "trick" amazon this way, you've entered a contract with them, and possibly tens of thousands of real dollars are at stake
Also, you should actually read the part of the agreement, which was in my original post. Here it is again, with the important part highlighted.
I realized my original post was too long already so I avoided pointing out these kinds of things there, but we should all be speculating and researching (if we're that interested) how the courts will define things like "similar edition, version, or release."
Business Insider and author of TFA, Dan Frommer, got several details wrong.
TLDR; Amazon prevents you from selling for cheaper on other outlets, or giving away free downloads or FOSS if you want to charge on the Amazon Appstore.
What does "MSRP" mean?
In the retail business (that's where the "R" in "MSRP" comes from) retailers make speculations on how many units they can sell at what prices over what period of time, compare to actual or theoretical negotiated bulk prices for purchasing from a manufacturer or wholesaler, and then decide whether or not it meets their profit expectations. It can be a little more complex than this, but this is the gist of it.
Well, the article linked to by Slashdot does not help you find Amazon's justification for using the terms "MSRP" or "SRP." My research, which may be incomplete, indicates that Amazon is not using this term, and rightly so. Here is an excerpt from Amazon's Appstore Distribution Agreement, which you can see in PDF form here (MD5 checksum 15636c42ecfb47dc819445ad3214eac4, just in case they change the file in the future without renaming it.)
Section 2a of Amazon's Appstore Distribution Agreement
Ok, so what we're actually dealing with is called a "List Price" in the legal agreement to supply Amazon's new App Store. This is a more correct term, because an MSRP is legally unrelated to the price a retailer secures from their supplier for units of the product. It's clear though that this "List Price" bears legal weight in determining the PPU (price per unit) of the product from the supplier (or, developer, I guess.)
So at this point what we have established is that the "List Price" in fact has no bearing on what the app will be sold for, but is defined to be five times the minimum PPU the developer is paid.
Here is a really important detail that Business Insider and author of TFA, Dan Frommer, glossed over:
Somehow, even managing to discuss the situation in which you set your prices differently for different sales outlets, Business Insider and Dan Frommer miss this juicy tidbit:
Section 5i of Amazon's Appstore Distribution Agreement
"List Price," then, is not simply five times the minimum PPU you wish to be paid (which would effectively allow you to actually set the price you want to sell at, which would be nice) but is in fact a function of what price you are offering, but a function of the price your app is available for at different outlets! This means if your app is on multiple outlets, Amazon takes away your ability to set your price through the List Price, and even
It's okay, I make decent money now, and I know what it's like to not have *any* money.
Good.
I saw this story covered at BoingBoing earlier and I have to say -- has anyone actually read this article?
This is not a major victory. This is a temporary set-back for the record labels who wish for overreaching legal powers to stop the unstoppable.
Here are some very meaningful excerpts from the same story covered by the Irish Times:
"...the judge said laws were not in place in Ireland to enforce disconnections over illegal downloads... this gap in legislation meant Ireland was not complying with European law."
"The judge made it very clear that an injunction would be morally justified but that the Irish legislature had failed in its obligation to confer on the courts the right to grant such injunctions, unlike other EU states."
"Irish Recorded Music Association director-general Dick Doyle said his office would pressure the Government to reform the law in favour of record labels."
RTFA
*sigh*
Well, I just bought myself an elliptical machine. I guess now I should buy a standing computer desk for work.
I downloaded them to see if I or my friends' infos are floating around out there.
About eight hours ago I noticed Boing Boing has been running a gamedev contest that has attracted several Javascript/Canvas games. They seem to have sound using the "Sound" element that works in Firefox.
http://www.boingboing.net/arcade/
If only there were a way the public could verify these claims... has anyone ever thought of developing software that exposes its source codes so that users can explore and improve their programs?
Youtube is pretty much unwatchable now, between the annoying boxes people put on videos to the annoying ads. I may never find out about their new features, because I don't go there anymore.
When YouTube ditches Flash for Javascript and HTML5 video, we'll all be able to hack YouTube with browser add-ons like Greasemonkey to disable the annoying boxes people add to videos when/if we want, or move them so they don't obscure the video.
My computer's GPU fan just kicked on for the very first time since I bought this machine about 6 months ago.
At first I thought there was something wrong.
And then I realized that, for the first time... there was something right.
They already are at least as robust as good old-fashioned know-how, because the system supplies advisory information to a human with a brain.
But the human brain is becoming more dependent on this system to know how to get around. A lot of people these days know one route to get between point a and point b. If humans get used to being able to ask a computer that can't be clever in an emergency, then it will be a problem when we are dependent upon it, not before.
The same thing happened to me, but I turned around and found another way without Google's help.
What makes this a problem in my mind is that Google Maps doesn't offer a "detour me" feature that allows you to easily avoid specified nodes in the commute graph. My Garmin GPS had this feature and driving all over the Western half of the US for many months I can tell you it was an indispensable feature.
A good detour feature is a really necessary feature in an emergency situation. As we become more dependent on these systems, we should make sure they are at least as robust as good old-fashioned know-how. Being a firm believe in technology, I'm sure Google Maps could in fact surpass our own robustness and incorporate features to make emergencies even safer for people, but right now Google Maps seems to be focused on telling you how to go some place where you'll spend money.
It offends me more than it would most Tibetan Buddhists! How can you market this "phone?" It looks to me like a phone with some very simple software installed. The controlling powers that make a phone with specific software on it into a commodity worth seeking after are people I find very offensive indeed!
Are there any plans to punish companies that went along with this? Sure, they could argue they were strong-armed into it by Intel but that's no comfort for AMD and the sales they'll have lost.
AMD may even benefit from this. They may have in fact come to an agreement with Intel about how this would be done. AMD may have seen more sales, but then there would have actually been competition, and that means more product for a lower price! Yikes!!!
Seriously Slashdot editors, why do you have to suck so much?
Um... seriously? If they know the specific customer they wouldn't need to install the trojan.
It's not disclosed how the "trojan" is loaded onto the perpetrator's system, however getting that system to request and execute your code cuts through what is potentially a very hairy situation: who knows how many layers of abstraction the perp is using to hide from traces.
The article is very light on details, but I take it the idea is that more power would translate to higher clock frequencies or higher data throughput and the like.
I think an easier approach is for the scheduler to query the battery power before and after each task gets its shot at CPU time. If an application is using more than its power allocation, simply schedule it shorter and/or fewer turns on the CPU.
The article also fails to mention whether this mobile OS is capable of multitasking. If it is, then presumably the power settings for a given application would apply to the timeslices during which it is running.
There are two pages to the article, and it's quite clear that it supports some form of multitasking.
Come on, now
Dear God what is this person thinking? I have a fairly huge monitor and this page is still completely unviewable!