9 ms·

Faced with a Five-Page Limit, Lawyer Files Cartoon Amicus Brief

172 points by bootload 14y ago

dlss 14y ago
Somehow I was expecting an ending where the author is awesome. Maybe he lifts a car, maybe the girl gives him a series of unreasonable compliments... just something
jethroalias97 14y ago
I don't know if Poe would be considered a novelist, but he can really blow you away in less than 5 pages. 1) http://www.online-literature.com/poe/335/ http://www.online-literature.com/poe/335/
- chrischen 14y ago
  I don't think the comic format was legitimately for fitting more info in to 5 pages. Probably more of a publicity gimmick.
  - thedudemabry 14y ago
    I agree. This isn't a space-saving brief. It's an attempt to inflame. But... I think it's pretty cool that a new medium for legal discourse has been actually used. Several years after absorbing Scott McCloud's phenomenal book Understanding Comics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Comics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Comics), I set out to argue for a very technical (programming) project at work through a goofy comic. It was surprisingly effective, and got more eyes on it than the more traditional internal wiki plea. I assume that the novelty and incongruence of the medium brings the audience out of whatever comfort zone they routinely occupy.
    - hrayr 14y ago
      Reminds me of "Why's Poignant Guid to Ruby" [1]. I can't say how efficient this medium is for transferring information/knowledge, but it's certainly captivating -- sometimes what's needed to get a point across is not efficiency, but captivation. [1] http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/ http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/
- Steko 14y ago
  Faulkner had the best quote here: I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.
mhd 14y ago
Maybe it's just the looks of the main character, but this reminded me a bit of Scott McCloud - although I would like how he would do things like this in a "Understanding Comics" style.
fpgeek 14y ago
For completeness, here's a non-cartoon summary of the other side of the story: http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2012/07/24/your-unspecial-antitrust-snowflake/ http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2012/07/24/your-unspe...
- aaplsux 14y ago
  Inexpensive books? This must be stopped! The last thing the country needs is educated citizens. Think of the job creators! They are special snowflakes.
  - TimGebhardt 14y ago
    Did you actually read the story? It's not that the books were low priced. It's that they were priced predatorily. Preditory pricing is bad for consumers in the long run, and in every industry outside of software is seen as a bad thing. In the software business that seems to be the standard VC-backed-company model.
    - anamax 14y ago
      > Preditory pricing is bad for consumers in the long run, and in every industry outside of software is seen as a bad thing. Not so fast. "Agency model", which is what the publishers want to mandate, is "retailers have to sell at MSRP". There may be nothing stopping them from refusing to sell through Amazon unless Amazon agrees to MSRP. That said, lots of industries do work on "retailers pick the pricing", which is the deal that Amazon likes. (Either way, the publishers get to decide how much they charge distributors.) The "predation" here is that Amazon is willing to take a smaller cut than Apple. That's not predatory. If anything, that's a competitive response to Apple's favored status on a dominant hardware platform.
      - eridius 14y ago
        A competitive response? Amazon was selling books below marginal cost before Apple even entered the ebook market. Unless Amazon is equipped with a time machine, I'm pretty sure this wasn't a response to Apple, just a strategy intended to produce a monopsony.
anigbrowl 14y ago
A bit gimmicky (since the argument could easily have been stated in a couple of pages), but he developed the argument cleverly.
- grabeh 14y ago
  Although the argument relayed in the comic could be stated in a couple of pages, I believe the point of the comic is to mock the judge for imposing a 5-page limit as this is an insufficient amount of space in which to relay the full argument that the lawyer wanted to make. The last section states 'it's impossible to tell a complex story in only five pages'.
bifrost 14y ago
this is excellent!
Tichy 14y ago
Not that we can see it in black and white, the case is settled. Pictures can't lie.
tankenmate 14y ago
The argument of the cartoon is great except for one thing, the marginal cost; for e-books the marginal cost is so close to zero it might as well be considered zero. This was also stated by another commenter on the OP discussion section.
- aaplsux 14y ago
  Exactly. But this bonehead wants to argue that it's "presumed illegal" to sell them for what they cost: almost nothing.
  - biot 14y ago
    If you're paying a $3 royalty to the rightsholders per copy sold, then the marginal cost is at least that plus minor distribution and transactional costs. If you sell the e-book for $2.99, that's below marginal cost.
    - belorn 14y ago
      But that is not what the comics argue since they are attributing it to DOJ guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property. There is not a single reference to marginal cost or copyright infringement in that document. The guidelines focus around market power, and competitive prices. Contrary to the comic, the guidelines do to define what an competitive price is, or public goods, or systems goods, or the effect of supply & demand on IP. The closest we get is a statement that market power exist if the consumer can not get the product beyond from a single source. If someone edited the Wikipedia article about IP and used the same wording as the comic, it would get reverted with the comment ("Does not exist in source").
      - biot 14y ago
        > There is not a single reference to marginal cost or > copyright infringement in that document. Did we read the same document? These references are from http://www.abajournal.com/files/AppleAmicusBrief.pdf http://www.abajournal.com/files/AppleAmicusBrief.pdf Page 2 panel 2: Woman: "Oh, because of illegal downloading." (aka copyright infringement) Page 3, panel 2: Woman: "Who said Amazon was a predator?" Man: "The DOJ did in their own complaint & CIS. Amazon sold e-books below marginal cost." Page 4 panels 1 & 2: Woman: "So, how does all this help solve the case?" Man: "You see, when Amazon lowered e-book prices below its marginal cost..." Man: "... any conduct that raised them back to marginal cost could not have harmed consumers."
junto 14y ago
It is a pity that his argument is a load of bollocks. As I understand it, he argues that an e-books price fixing cartel is in the interests of all, including the consumer, because otherwise, companies such as Amazon will lower the price to a point (whilst continuing making a loss), such that all others e-book sellers are unable to compete long term. Or, have I misunderstood his five pages of cartoon genius?
- quadhome 14y ago
  Maybe. But you haven't explained why it's a load of bollocks.
  - sageikosa 14y ago
    Because it is a non-sequitor. It uses hypothetical future bad behavior (which itself isn't proven) to justify an actual "bad" behavior to compensate before it occurs. But, I am anti-anti-trust, so I don't have a problem with collusion of this sort; any inefficient collusion will eventually bloat and be disrupted (unless protected by the government as a sanctioned monopoly).
- chalst 14y ago
  Price competition that results in monopoly is not in the long-term interests of consumers. This is the same argument that lies behind anti-dumping legislation. I'm not convinced by it either, but the lawyer does have a fair point that it is hard to demonstrate the seriousness of the danger without being allowed space to document his view of the economics of e-book competition.
- jbrechtel 14y ago
  Yes, that's exactly what he's saying. Though, in his cartoon he makes it clear that this is only OK as a one-time event to correct what Amazon is doing (i.e. selling below cost in an attempt to put competitors out of the market and thus preventing the market from being able to efficiently price eBooks).
  - sageikosa 14y ago
aaplsux 14y ago
This guy is your typical lawyer who has no life outside of his job. Just a tad bit overeager. "Look at me I'm an annoying laywer! I will argue the moon is made of cheese if you pay me." I can only imagine how long his brief would have been without the limit. The judge was wise; she obviously values her free time more than he does. "Efficient" prices. Yeah right. In other words, Apple prices. We all know how they work. Go Amazon!
- dctoedt 14y ago
  > This guy is your typical lawyer who has no life outside of his job. Far from it. If the comic author is who I think it is [1] (and I'm pretty sure it is), he's not at all your typical lawyer. Way back in the day, he was the general counsel of Borland International [2], which published Turbo Pascal, Turbo C, Sidekick, etc. Bob's Christmas-card newsletters were always a blast to read, although I haven't been on his mailing list for a number of years now. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Kohn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Kohn [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borland
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - aaplsux 14y ago
    You're right. I'm wrong. Apologies to Mr. Kohn. He's not a bonehead either. But that is a boneheaded cartoon and he is making boneheaded arguments. When you look at what he's doing now and who is clients are it makes perfect sense why he wants to submit an amicus brief. As a consumer, Kohn is not looking out for my interests. The internet makes publishing less expensive. We are getting things for free that we used to pay for. This aggravates lots of people. But technology has no moral sense. It is a means to an end. (The information in legal research databases, not to mention the dubious "copyright" status of court decisions that some "Legal Publishers" assert, are fine examples you should be familiar with. The internet does not benefit every business. Poor Lexis-Nexis. Poor Westlaw. Poor Martindale. They have to adapt and compete. What a tragedy.) But the internet clearly benefits consumers. We get lower prices and better access to information. How is this a bad thing? Amazon may be no angel but they have embraced the internet, openness and interoperability to a far greater degree than those who now oppose them, seeking the help of the courts to slow Amazon's progress. Royalty rates are a matter of negotiation not actual production and distribution costs. It's interesting to see how some commenters seems to view what the publisher deems a reasonable rate as a "fixed cost". The top post in this thread is spot on. There's nothing to stop anyone from offering low prices like Amazon. It's pretty obvious why they do not want to and why they would go so far as to suggest Amazon is breaking the law. I don't want to see people's book collections turn into some ridiculous propreitary iTunes-like lock-in, denying people ownership or any reasonable amount of interoperability.
seanmcdirmid 14y ago
Related to Bret Victors work: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4421235 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4421235 I really want to try this in my next paper!
lucian1900 14y ago
So it boils down to "let collusion go unpunished this one time, because we did your job for you!". Right. Not only would it create a precedent in letting collusion slide, but it would also misrepresent the problem: it's DRM that supports Amazon's monopsony, and only because publishers asked for it.
weekends 14y ago
If all legal briefs were like this I suspect more people would be able to understand the law
Swizec 14y ago
After reading the comic, I have no idea what the point is. Is he for or against whatever is going on? What's even going on? I just feel so confused.
- grabeh 14y ago
  Initially, Amazon set prices at whatever level they wanted because they had a distribution model with publishers. This means the publisher would charge a set price to Amazon and Amazon could then charge whatever it liked to end-consumers. Amazon engaged in low pricing to build market share. Apple and publishers didn't like this because lower book prices meant lower revenues and sales for them. Discussions were had and publishers then collectively went to Amazon to demand a switch to the agency model. In the agency model, the publisher sets the end retail price and the intermediary (Amazon) takes an agreed cut. The lawyer argues that the above one-time step by the publishers against Amazon was necessary to correct the anti-competitive action of Amazon in engaging in pricing at a level which would reduce competition over time. Effectively, the rise in prices resulting from the agency model was justified because without the reversion to the agency model, Amazon's continued low pricing would eventually lead to monopsony effects in terms of Amazon being able to control publishers. The lawyer goes on to say that what is important is not the price level, but its effectiveness in terms of encouraging competition. In the short term, consumers benefit from a low price, but if one actor becomes the only provider, it is likely to have a detrimental effect on the ability of upstream providers to compete.
  - mtgx 14y ago
    Which model ended up benefiting the consumer the most, though? I thought that's what antitrust is all about. Sure, we could make theories all day long about how 10 years from now Amazon will increase their prices, but that's highly improbable, as I think Amazon would like to make book prices even lower if they could. That's why they are allowing self-published authors to sell books even for $2.99, and singles for $0.99. They are working in the same time to disrupt the traditional publishing model. And that's a good thing. I was hoping Google would be the more innovative company with Google Books, and try to disrupt Amazon with new models of selling books (or free/ad-based, promote self-publishing more, etc), but they've disappointed me in doing that, and honestly I have no idea why they even bothered entering the book market, if they weren't going to be serious and do something radical and disruptive to gain market share from Amazon. I'm not even a fan of Amazon, and I'll never forgive them for what they voluntarily did to Wikileaks, but so far Amazon has proven time and time again to be the most innovative company in the book industry.
kghose 14y ago
It looks novel (and obviously succeeded in getting attention) but I don't think he used the comic medium potential - it was all mostly bullet points, but instead of bullets, he put a comic frame around each point. The question and answer format was OK, but really, it did not clarify any points for me or make them less dense. But then, this was still meant for other lawyers, and not as a layman's explanation.
colinshark 14y ago
So Amazon is being bad because they might seize the market and raise prices. But the publishers want to raise prices right now. Got it.
calinet6 14y ago
"The illustrator attends school with Kohn's daughter, Katie, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in film studies at Harvard." "Attends school with." Mmmhmmm.
saurik 14y ago
I can't imagine that this was more efficient, or potentially even more enjoyable, than something that used the space more efficiently: between the handwritten and crowded text, the repetitive panels, and the irritating premise of a conversation that would never have happened, I found reading that document very difficult.
lukev 14y ago
So he's weighing two bad things against eachother: - collusive price-fixing - predatory pricing These are both definitely bad things, and using one to justify the other is itself problematic. But there's another dimension - are these allegations true? As I understand it, predatory pricing is when a large player throws its weight around, offering goods at below cost to edge out competitors. But there's nothing stopping other retailers from offering similarly low prices. Ebooks have almost no marginal price. Just because someone else wants to sell ebooks for a higher price doesn't make prices lower than that predatory.
- pedrocr 14y ago
  >Ebooks have almost no marginal price. Just because someone else wants to sell ebooks for a higher price doesn't make prices lower than that predatory. To Amazon ebooks have a marginal price as they're paying the publisher a fixed value for every copy. They were charging customers less than that value so that's where the accusations came from.
  - eridius 14y ago
    Very true. And it's highly unlikely that another distribution channel could come along and convince the same publisher to sell the ebooks to them at a lower price, so they could compete with Amazon without selling below cost. It seems a lot of people are fixated on the idea that digital goods have no cost, which is simply untrue. Even discounting the fact that the seller has to purchase the item from the publisher (under the traditional model), there's still a base cost associated with the good because of licensing issues. People need to get paid, and certainly some people do get paid on a royalty basis. As a trivial example, someone needs to pay the author, which is typically done through royalties. But the publisher also needs to get paid, as does anyone the publisher employs. If you're self-publishing and selling on your own storefront, then no there's probably no marginal cost as you don't have any sort of license or royalty agreements with yourself. But as soon as multiple parties are involved, things change.
    - jeffdavis 14y ago
gunshor 14y ago
Who knew -- lawyers can be creative. Count me impressed.
tomrod 14y ago
ahem Marginal costs on ebooks are essentially zero after factoring payment to authors/publishers. Fixed costs, even long-term variable costs, cannot be considered marginal costs here. The costs are hosting and delivery of content. So unless Amazon is selling books at a price lower than what it paid to authors/publishers who distribute through them, I don't follow the inherent marginal cost pricing argument. Perhaps the author means average costs?

172 points by bootload 14y ago

dlss 14y ago

Somehow I was expecting an ending where the author is awesome. Maybe he lifts a car, maybe the girl gives him a series of unreasonable compliments... just something

jethroalias97 14y ago

I don't know if Poe would be considered a novelist, but he can really blow you away in less than 5 pages. 1) http://www.online-literature.com/poe/335/ http://www.online-literature.com/poe/335/

chrischen 14y ago
I don't think the comic format was legitimately for fitting more info in to 5 pages. Probably more of a publicity gimmick.
- thedudemabry 14y ago
  I agree. This isn't a space-saving brief. It's an attempt to inflame. But... I think it's pretty cool that a new medium for legal discourse has been actually used. Several years after absorbing Scott McCloud's phenomenal book Understanding Comics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Comics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Comics), I set out to argue for a very technical (programming) project at work through a goofy comic. It was surprisingly effective, and got more eyes on it than the more traditional internal wiki plea. I assume that the novelty and incongruence of the medium brings the audience out of whatever comfort zone they routinely occupy.
  - hrayr 14y ago
    Reminds me of "Why's Poignant Guid to Ruby" [1]. I can't say how efficient this medium is for transferring information/knowledge, but it's certainly captivating -- sometimes what's needed to get a point across is not efficiency, but captivation. [1] http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/ http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/
Steko 14y ago
Faulkner had the best quote here: I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.

mhd 14y ago

Maybe it's just the looks of the main character, but this reminded me a bit of Scott McCloud - although I would like how he would do things like this in a "Understanding Comics" style.

fpgeek 14y ago

For completeness, here's a non-cartoon summary of the other side of the story: http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2012/07/24/your-unspecial-antitrust-snowflake/ http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2012/07/24/your-unspe...

aaplsux 14y ago
Inexpensive books? This must be stopped! The last thing the country needs is educated citizens. Think of the job creators! They are special snowflakes.
- TimGebhardt 14y ago
  Did you actually read the story? It's not that the books were low priced. It's that they were priced predatorily. Preditory pricing is bad for consumers in the long run, and in every industry outside of software is seen as a bad thing. In the software business that seems to be the standard VC-backed-company model.
  - anamax 14y ago
    > Preditory pricing is bad for consumers in the long run, and in every industry outside of software is seen as a bad thing. Not so fast. "Agency model", which is what the publishers want to mandate, is "retailers have to sell at MSRP". There may be nothing stopping them from refusing to sell through Amazon unless Amazon agrees to MSRP. That said, lots of industries do work on "retailers pick the pricing", which is the deal that Amazon likes. (Either way, the publishers get to decide how much they charge distributors.) The "predation" here is that Amazon is willing to take a smaller cut than Apple. That's not predatory. If anything, that's a competitive response to Apple's favored status on a dominant hardware platform.
    - eridius 14y ago
      A competitive response? Amazon was selling books below marginal cost before Apple even entered the ebook market. Unless Amazon is equipped with a time machine, I'm pretty sure this wasn't a response to Apple, just a strategy intended to produce a monopsony.

anigbrowl 14y ago

A bit gimmicky (since the argument could easily have been stated in a couple of pages), but he developed the argument cleverly.

grabeh 14y ago
Although the argument relayed in the comic could be stated in a couple of pages, I believe the point of the comic is to mock the judge for imposing a 5-page limit as this is an insufficient amount of space in which to relay the full argument that the lawyer wanted to make. The last section states 'it's impossible to tell a complex story in only five pages'.

bifrost 14y ago

this is excellent!

Tichy 14y ago

Not that we can see it in black and white, the case is settled. Pictures can't lie.

tankenmate 14y ago

The argument of the cartoon is great except for one thing, the marginal cost; for e-books the marginal cost is so close to zero it might as well be considered zero. This was also stated by another commenter on the OP discussion section.

aaplsux 14y ago
Exactly. But this bonehead wants to argue that it's "presumed illegal" to sell them for what they cost: almost nothing.
- biot 14y ago
  If you're paying a $3 royalty to the rightsholders per copy sold, then the marginal cost is at least that plus minor distribution and transactional costs. If you sell the e-book for $2.99, that's below marginal cost.
  - belorn 14y ago
    But that is not what the comics argue since they are attributing it to DOJ guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property. There is not a single reference to marginal cost or copyright infringement in that document. The guidelines focus around market power, and competitive prices. Contrary to the comic, the guidelines do to define what an competitive price is, or public goods, or systems goods, or the effect of supply & demand on IP. The closest we get is a statement that market power exist if the consumer can not get the product beyond from a single source. If someone edited the Wikipedia article about IP and used the same wording as the comic, it would get reverted with the comment ("Does not exist in source").
    - biot 14y ago
      > There is not a single reference to marginal cost or > copyright infringement in that document. Did we read the same document? These references are from http://www.abajournal.com/files/AppleAmicusBrief.pdf http://www.abajournal.com/files/AppleAmicusBrief.pdf Page 2 panel 2: Woman: "Oh, because of illegal downloading." (aka copyright infringement) Page 3, panel 2: Woman: "Who said Amazon was a predator?" Man: "The DOJ did in their own complaint & CIS. Amazon sold e-books below marginal cost." Page 4 panels 1 & 2: Woman: "So, how does all this help solve the case?" Man: "You see, when Amazon lowered e-book prices below its marginal cost..." Man: "... any conduct that raised them back to marginal cost could not have harmed consumers."

junto 14y ago

It is a pity that his argument is a load of bollocks. As I understand it, he argues that an e-books price fixing cartel is in the interests of all, including the consumer, because otherwise, companies such as Amazon will lower the price to a point (whilst continuing making a loss), such that all others e-book sellers are unable to compete long term. Or, have I misunderstood his five pages of cartoon genius?

quadhome 14y ago
Maybe. But you haven't explained why it's a load of bollocks.
- sageikosa 14y ago
  Because it is a non-sequitor. It uses hypothetical future bad behavior (which itself isn't proven) to justify an actual "bad" behavior to compensate before it occurs. But, I am anti-anti-trust, so I don't have a problem with collusion of this sort; any inefficient collusion will eventually bloat and be disrupted (unless protected by the government as a sanctioned monopoly).
chalst 14y ago
Price competition that results in monopoly is not in the long-term interests of consumers. This is the same argument that lies behind anti-dumping legislation. I'm not convinced by it either, but the lawyer does have a fair point that it is hard to demonstrate the seriousness of the danger without being allowed space to document his view of the economics of e-book competition.
jbrechtel 14y ago
Yes, that's exactly what he's saying. Though, in his cartoon he makes it clear that this is only OK as a one-time event to correct what Amazon is doing (i.e. selling below cost in an attempt to put competitors out of the market and thus preventing the market from being able to efficiently price eBooks).
- sageikosa 14y ago

aaplsux 14y ago

This guy is your typical lawyer who has no life outside of his job. Just a tad bit overeager. "Look at me I'm an annoying laywer! I will argue the moon is made of cheese if you pay me." I can only imagine how long his brief would have been without the limit. The judge was wise; she obviously values her free time more than he does. "Efficient" prices. Yeah right. In other words, Apple prices. We all know how they work. Go Amazon!

dctoedt 14y ago
> This guy is your typical lawyer who has no life outside of his job. Far from it. If the comic author is who I think it is [1] (and I'm pretty sure it is), he's not at all your typical lawyer. Way back in the day, he was the general counsel of Borland International [2], which published Turbo Pascal, Turbo C, Sidekick, etc. Bob's Christmas-card newsletters were always a blast to read, although I haven't been on his mailing list for a number of years now. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Kohn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Kohn [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borland
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- aaplsux 14y ago
  You're right. I'm wrong. Apologies to Mr. Kohn. He's not a bonehead either. But that is a boneheaded cartoon and he is making boneheaded arguments. When you look at what he's doing now and who is clients are it makes perfect sense why he wants to submit an amicus brief. As a consumer, Kohn is not looking out for my interests. The internet makes publishing less expensive. We are getting things for free that we used to pay for. This aggravates lots of people. But technology has no moral sense. It is a means to an end. (The information in legal research databases, not to mention the dubious "copyright" status of court decisions that some "Legal Publishers" assert, are fine examples you should be familiar with. The internet does not benefit every business. Poor Lexis-Nexis. Poor Westlaw. Poor Martindale. They have to adapt and compete. What a tragedy.) But the internet clearly benefits consumers. We get lower prices and better access to information. How is this a bad thing? Amazon may be no angel but they have embraced the internet, openness and interoperability to a far greater degree than those who now oppose them, seeking the help of the courts to slow Amazon's progress. Royalty rates are a matter of negotiation not actual production and distribution costs. It's interesting to see how some commenters seems to view what the publisher deems a reasonable rate as a "fixed cost". The top post in this thread is spot on. There's nothing to stop anyone from offering low prices like Amazon. It's pretty obvious why they do not want to and why they would go so far as to suggest Amazon is breaking the law. I don't want to see people's book collections turn into some ridiculous propreitary iTunes-like lock-in, denying people ownership or any reasonable amount of interoperability.

seanmcdirmid 14y ago

Related to Bret Victors work: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4421235 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4421235 I really want to try this in my next paper!

lucian1900 14y ago

So it boils down to "let collusion go unpunished this one time, because we did your job for you!". Right. Not only would it create a precedent in letting collusion slide, but it would also misrepresent the problem: it's DRM that supports Amazon's monopsony, and only because publishers asked for it.

weekends 14y ago

If all legal briefs were like this I suspect more people would be able to understand the law

Swizec 14y ago

After reading the comic, I have no idea what the point is. Is he for or against whatever is going on? What's even going on? I just feel so confused.

grabeh 14y ago
Initially, Amazon set prices at whatever level they wanted because they had a distribution model with publishers. This means the publisher would charge a set price to Amazon and Amazon could then charge whatever it liked to end-consumers. Amazon engaged in low pricing to build market share. Apple and publishers didn't like this because lower book prices meant lower revenues and sales for them. Discussions were had and publishers then collectively went to Amazon to demand a switch to the agency model. In the agency model, the publisher sets the end retail price and the intermediary (Amazon) takes an agreed cut. The lawyer argues that the above one-time step by the publishers against Amazon was necessary to correct the anti-competitive action of Amazon in engaging in pricing at a level which would reduce competition over time. Effectively, the rise in prices resulting from the agency model was justified because without the reversion to the agency model, Amazon's continued low pricing would eventually lead to monopsony effects in terms of Amazon being able to control publishers. The lawyer goes on to say that what is important is not the price level, but its effectiveness in terms of encouraging competition. In the short term, consumers benefit from a low price, but if one actor becomes the only provider, it is likely to have a detrimental effect on the ability of upstream providers to compete.
- mtgx 14y ago
  Which model ended up benefiting the consumer the most, though? I thought that's what antitrust is all about. Sure, we could make theories all day long about how 10 years from now Amazon will increase their prices, but that's highly improbable, as I think Amazon would like to make book prices even lower if they could. That's why they are allowing self-published authors to sell books even for $2.99, and singles for $0.99. They are working in the same time to disrupt the traditional publishing model. And that's a good thing. I was hoping Google would be the more innovative company with Google Books, and try to disrupt Amazon with new models of selling books (or free/ad-based, promote self-publishing more, etc), but they've disappointed me in doing that, and honestly I have no idea why they even bothered entering the book market, if they weren't going to be serious and do something radical and disruptive to gain market share from Amazon. I'm not even a fan of Amazon, and I'll never forgive them for what they voluntarily did to Wikileaks, but so far Amazon has proven time and time again to be the most innovative company in the book industry.

kghose 14y ago

It looks novel (and obviously succeeded in getting attention) but I don't think he used the comic medium potential - it was all mostly bullet points, but instead of bullets, he put a comic frame around each point. The question and answer format was OK, but really, it did not clarify any points for me or make them less dense. But then, this was still meant for other lawyers, and not as a layman's explanation.

colinshark 14y ago

So Amazon is being bad because they might seize the market and raise prices. But the publishers want to raise prices right now. Got it.

calinet6 14y ago

"The illustrator attends school with Kohn's daughter, Katie, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in film studies at Harvard." "Attends school with." Mmmhmmm.

saurik 14y ago

I can't imagine that this was more efficient, or potentially even more enjoyable, than something that used the space more efficiently: between the handwritten and crowded text, the repetitive panels, and the irritating premise of a conversation that would never have happened, I found reading that document very difficult.

lukev 14y ago

So he's weighing two bad things against eachother: - collusive price-fixing - predatory pricing These are both definitely bad things, and using one to justify the other is itself problematic. But there's another dimension - are these allegations true? As I understand it, predatory pricing is when a large player throws its weight around, offering goods at below cost to edge out competitors. But there's nothing stopping other retailers from offering similarly low prices. Ebooks have almost no marginal price. Just because someone else wants to sell ebooks for a higher price doesn't make prices lower than that predatory.

pedrocr 14y ago
>Ebooks have almost no marginal price. Just because someone else wants to sell ebooks for a higher price doesn't make prices lower than that predatory. To Amazon ebooks have a marginal price as they're paying the publisher a fixed value for every copy. They were charging customers less than that value so that's where the accusations came from.
- eridius 14y ago
  Very true. And it's highly unlikely that another distribution channel could come along and convince the same publisher to sell the ebooks to them at a lower price, so they could compete with Amazon without selling below cost. It seems a lot of people are fixated on the idea that digital goods have no cost, which is simply untrue. Even discounting the fact that the seller has to purchase the item from the publisher (under the traditional model), there's still a base cost associated with the good because of licensing issues. People need to get paid, and certainly some people do get paid on a royalty basis. As a trivial example, someone needs to pay the author, which is typically done through royalties. But the publisher also needs to get paid, as does anyone the publisher employs. If you're self-publishing and selling on your own storefront, then no there's probably no marginal cost as you don't have any sort of license or royalty agreements with yourself. But as soon as multiple parties are involved, things change.
  - jeffdavis 14y ago

gunshor 14y ago

Who knew -- lawyers can be creative. Count me impressed.

tomrod 14y ago

ahem Marginal costs on ebooks are essentially zero after factoring payment to authors/publishers. Fixed costs, even long-term variable costs, cannot be considered marginal costs here. The costs are hosting and delivery of content. So unless Amazon is selling books at a price lower than what it paid to authors/publishers who distribute through them, I don't follow the inherent marginal cost pricing argument. Perhaps the author means average costs?