4 ms·

George Orwell is Amazon's latest target in battle against Hachette

7 points by kevingadd 12y ago

__Joker 12y ago
Neither Amazon nor Hachette have interest of reader or writer. They are just trying to side on the reader or picture their interest as a interest to reader or writer.
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  Making your customers happy is important. Amazon's customers are readers. Hachette's customers are large bookstores.
revelation 12y ago
The NYT has really gone off the rails on this topic.
- jonnathanson 12y ago
  It's a big stretch for the NYT to jump on the Orwell reference and make it the basis of an entire article, even if it's for their blog and not their paper. That said, it was crass of Amazon to invoke Orwell in the first place. They referenced him largely of context, cherry picked a quote, and dredged him up primarily for the emotional connotations of his name. Someone was going to call them out on it. Because "1984" is the first and only thing 99% of people know about George Orwell, bringing his name into a discussion has long been the literary equivalent of reductio ad Hitlerum. "Even George Orwell said...," or "George Orwell himself wrote..." are often the hallmarks of lazy and facile arguments. Amazon's Orwell reference was similarly lame. I have no love for Hachette in this battle. At the same time, I don't find Amazon to be a wholly likable or compelling protagonist. Its PR strategies have been hamfisted, ceding a lot of moral appeal to Hachette that Hachette has not earned and does not deserve. That this whole thing plays out, day by day, in a paper of record like the NYT is a consequence of the NYT's close orbit to the publishing world. Many of its writers are represented by the same agencies that rep Hachette's writers, and some are probably Hachette writers themselves.
  - Turing_Machine 12y ago
    Also, a group headed by Hachette author Douglas Preston just bought a $100K full-page ad in the NYT. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
    - jonnathanson 12y ago
      In fairness, I don't think $100k buys you the opinion of the NYT. I give the paper a little bit more credit than that. Besides, it's been airing this blow-by-blow for months now, long before that ad buy. To the extent the NYT is inclined to take Hachette's side of the fight, that's largely because its staff and editors are much closer to Hachette, geographically, professionally, and socially. It's still not a great reason, of course, but it's not pay-for-play.
      - Turing_Machine 12y ago
        There's also the fluff piece the NYT ran on Preston a couple of days ago about poor little Preston, channeling Thoreau and fighting the evil 'Zon from his "writing shack" (that just happens to be located on 300 acres of land that also features a luxury home and is located in a Maine community where a "cottage" goes for $1.5 million). If Amazon is dishonest for invoking Orwell, it pales in comparison to the David and Goliath spin that the Times has been putting on this story, where David consists of millionaire celeb authors like Preston, James Patterson, et al and mega-billion conglomerates like Lagadere (Hachette), Bertelsmann, CBS, and Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp. You're right that this is largely New York "literary" snobbery at work. I just wish they wouldn't use the "poor little author" spin. Note that Amazon has made three separate offers to mitigate the effect of this dispute on authors. Hachette has rejected all three, and has offered none of its own. It's pretty clear who's really "hurting authors" here. Actually that's been clear for quite a long time, given that Amazon pays authors who deal with them direct 70% of retail and doesn't require that the author sign up for the life of the copyright, while Hachette and their ilk typically pay 12%-15% of retail and do require the authors to sign over their rights for the life of the copyright.
        12y ago
facepalm 12y ago
Orwell was not an economist. I think this is really silly. How about instead of quoting random opinions, let's look into what actually happened in the real world? For one thing I don't think the book industry has suffered much since the introduction of the Penguin books? This reminds me of the piracy debate. Was Microsoft helped or hurt by the rampant piracy of the Windows OS? I'm pretty sure they were helped a lot (how else achieve 99% lock in), but presumably the point could be argued back and forth indefinitely (people who would argue either point would be plentiful to find). Also the discussion is completely besides the point. Two businesses can't agree on a price. Neither of the two has a moral obligation to sell books for a certain price. If they don't agree, they simply don't sell books to each other. Why does that even concern anybody else?

7 points by kevingadd 12y ago

Neither Amazon nor Hachette have interest of reader or writer. They are just trying to side on the reader or picture their interest as a interest to reader or writer.

Turing_Machine 12y ago
Making your customers happy is important. Amazon's customers are readers. Hachette's customers are large bookstores.

revelation 12y ago

The NYT has really gone off the rails on this topic.

jonnathanson 12y ago
It's a big stretch for the NYT to jump on the Orwell reference and make it the basis of an entire article, even if it's for their blog and not their paper. That said, it was crass of Amazon to invoke Orwell in the first place. They referenced him largely of context, cherry picked a quote, and dredged him up primarily for the emotional connotations of his name. Someone was going to call them out on it. Because "1984" is the first and only thing 99% of people know about George Orwell, bringing his name into a discussion has long been the literary equivalent of reductio ad Hitlerum. "Even George Orwell said...," or "George Orwell himself wrote..." are often the hallmarks of lazy and facile arguments. Amazon's Orwell reference was similarly lame. I have no love for Hachette in this battle. At the same time, I don't find Amazon to be a wholly likable or compelling protagonist. Its PR strategies have been hamfisted, ceding a lot of moral appeal to Hachette that Hachette has not earned and does not deserve. That this whole thing plays out, day by day, in a paper of record like the NYT is a consequence of the NYT's close orbit to the publishing world. Many of its writers are represented by the same agencies that rep Hachette's writers, and some are probably Hachette writers themselves.
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  Also, a group headed by Hachette author Douglas Preston just bought a $100K full-page ad in the NYT. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
  - jonnathanson 12y ago
    In fairness, I don't think $100k buys you the opinion of the NYT. I give the paper a little bit more credit than that. Besides, it's been airing this blow-by-blow for months now, long before that ad buy. To the extent the NYT is inclined to take Hachette's side of the fight, that's largely because its staff and editors are much closer to Hachette, geographically, professionally, and socially. It's still not a great reason, of course, but it's not pay-for-play.
    - Turing_Machine 12y ago
      There's also the fluff piece the NYT ran on Preston a couple of days ago about poor little Preston, channeling Thoreau and fighting the evil 'Zon from his "writing shack" (that just happens to be located on 300 acres of land that also features a luxury home and is located in a Maine community where a "cottage" goes for $1.5 million). If Amazon is dishonest for invoking Orwell, it pales in comparison to the David and Goliath spin that the Times has been putting on this story, where David consists of millionaire celeb authors like Preston, James Patterson, et al and mega-billion conglomerates like Lagadere (Hachette), Bertelsmann, CBS, and Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp. You're right that this is largely New York "literary" snobbery at work. I just wish they wouldn't use the "poor little author" spin. Note that Amazon has made three separate offers to mitigate the effect of this dispute on authors. Hachette has rejected all three, and has offered none of its own. It's pretty clear who's really "hurting authors" here. Actually that's been clear for quite a long time, given that Amazon pays authors who deal with them direct 70% of retail and doesn't require that the author sign up for the life of the copyright, while Hachette and their ilk typically pay 12%-15% of retail and do require the authors to sign over their rights for the life of the copyright.
      - 12y ago

facepalm 12y ago

Orwell was not an economist. I think this is really silly. How about instead of quoting random opinions, let's look into what actually happened in the real world? For one thing I don't think the book industry has suffered much since the introduction of the Penguin books? This reminds me of the piracy debate. Was Microsoft helped or hurt by the rampant piracy of the Windows OS? I'm pretty sure they were helped a lot (how else achieve 99% lock in), but presumably the point could be argued back and forth indefinitely (people who would argue either point would be plentiful to find). Also the discussion is completely besides the point. Two businesses can't agree on a price. Neither of the two has a moral obligation to sell books for a certain price. If they don't agree, they simply don't sell books to each other. Why does that even concern anybody else?