Price Fixing for eBooks?
Seems the US DoJ thinks so. If you’ve ever wondered how publishers can charge more for an ebook that for a print version, this is part of the answer. Here is a good roundup of recent coverage. With three of five defendants already having settled, the interest seems to have turned from the question of whether there is price fixing, to the rationale: what strategies are open to publishers in the face of Amazon’s stranglehold on distribution? The obvious answer, as an alternative to breaking the law, is to abandon print-based business models, and pull a Louis CK.
What is Louis CK doing? I can’t quite tell from the website…
He avaioded the comedy middlemen and went directly to his fan base with a reasonable offer, notably DRM free. https://buy.louisck.net/
I am not sure it is obvious that abandoning the print-based business model would solve this problem. As I understand it, what publishers are saying is that it is expensive to produce books (whether in print or electronic form) and do a proper job of it, and that Amazon’s prices cannot support quality book-production. I don’t think this argument can be dismissed out of hand. Apparently, Amazon has been known to encourage its customers to visit bookstores to look at books before ordering them through Amazon. One can infer from this that Amazon recognizes the value of the physical aspects of books, which is really not surprising. For those interested, these and other issues are covered in this recent article in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/business/media/amazons-e-book-pricing-a-constant-thorn-for-publishers.html?ref=books.
And here is another look at Amazon, and the options publishers have: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/04/understanding-amazons-strategy.html