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How was the agency model forced on Amazon? Apple offered a better deal, and if I recall correctly, even before the iBooks Store had launched, Amazon changed th
by nirvana 15y ago
How was the agency model forced on Amazon? Apple offered a better deal, and if I recall correctly, even before the iBooks Store had launched, Amazon changed their terms to offer the same deal. Amazon offered this same deal to everyone, including us. I'm not under a misunderstanding of what the deals are... I think you believed what you read in this press release and took it at face value.
A "model" cannot include "other stipulations". It is simply a broad description of an arrangement. There are many books that are not available for the Kindle or on iBooks, and it has been many years since they were published.
In short, the linked to article is FUD, Amazon chose to meet Apple's terms because they rightly recognized they were more competitive.
I agree, it is stupid that you can buy the physical book for less than the ebook. However, no matter how stupid it is, it isn't price fixing.
- capnrefsmmat 15y agoAmazon chose to meet the publishers' terms because publishers began to withdraw books from Amazon: > Macmillan CEO John Sargent had been meeting with Amazon to discuss getting full control over e-book prices, but Amazon refused to budge and all Macmillan's books were temporarily removed from Amazon—including the print versions. Amazon eventually relented and is allowing the books back on site, and is going along with Macmillan's demands for higher e-book prices. > At issue is Amazon's practice of setting nearly all new e-book releases at $9.99 no matter what it's paying the publisher. This means Amazon may be paying the publisher $14 per title, for example, but is intentionally taking a loss on sales in order to push cheap e-books to Kindle users. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/02/publishers-continue-pummeling-amazon-over-e-book-prices.ars http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/02/publishers-conti... Amazon was paying the publishers the full price they demanded -- the issue was not about publisher profit. Instead, Amazon intentionally took losses to promote ebooks as loss leaders. Publishers threatened to remove their books unless Amazon only sold their books at pre-specified minimum prices.
- sigzero 15y agoAll of this may be true but none of it puts Apple at fault nor do I think Apple will lose this one.
- capnrefsmmat 15y agoIndeed; I think the lawsuit intends to prove that Apple collaborated in the publishers on forcing the new prices, but that's an allegation I've never seen evidence for.
- fpgeek 15y agoOne piece of evidence: Steve Jobs's apparent foreknowledge that "The prices [of eBooks] will be the same." Citation (from Jan 2010, well before Amazon agreed to the agency model): http://kindleworld.blogspot.com/2010/01/steve-jobs-pulls-his-puppet-strings-but.html http://kindleworld.blogspot.com/2010/01/steve-jobs-pulls-his...
- GHFigs 15y agoMacmillan didn't withdraw their books from Amazon. It was Amazon that dropped Macmillan. Edit, for the [citation needed] crowd: "We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles." -- http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle/Tx2MEGQWTNGIMHV/1?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdMsgNo=1&ref_=cm_cd_et_md_pl&cdSort=oldest&displayType=tagsDetail&cdMsgID=Mx5Z9849POTZ4P#Mx5Z9849POTZ4P http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle/Tx2MEGQWTNGIMHV/1?_encodi...
- fpgeek 15y agoYes, Amazon protested Macmillan's eBook policy changes by the temporary Macmillan boycott. But don't forget what Amazon was protesting: Macmillan was refusing to sell eBooks to Amazon at the higher pre-Apple wholesale price that permitted Amazon to set its own price downstream. Let me say that again. Macmillan demanded that Amazon pay them less money per eBook so that Macmillan could control the price Amazon charged the end consumer. That sounds obviously anti-competitive to me.