Forum - View topicNEWS: U.S. Files Antitrust Suit Against Apple, Publishers
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
 Posts: 3820 Location: Louisville, KY |
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hmm i am not sure how this end up for manga in the states since most is just re-publishing.
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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It affects light novels, doesn't it? There have to be some that are sold as e-books. |
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
Posts: 3820 Location: Louisville, KY |
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light novels are just licensed as well from yen-press or other companies. The authors have no say on prices once the prices are set after licenses, however i would think they full control on prices in japan's e-books.. I am just guessing however. Still foreign material is going to be tricky... |
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tuxedocat
 Posts: 2183 |
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IMO, This totally needed to happen. The price of e-books has been rising to the extent that some titles equal or even exceed the cost of a print edition. This is frankly ridiculous considering the production costs are greatly reduced. Paper, printing and the bindery are the bulk of publishing expenditures. You don't have any of those costs with e-books. It is nothing but price gouging.
I have only bought one manga via e-book. Since I am using android, it was a total rip-off. Expanding the image to fit the screen was not easy, and when you did, you are unable to advance to the next page. The resolution was so poor that any mouse-text was unreadable without enlarging the image. Oh, and I paid more for the volume than I would have if I just ordered the print copy from TRSI. AFAIK, this is not a problem with ipads, because Apple has strong-armed so many publishers into exclusive deals. Of course, they don't want the android version to look good. The extra profit saved from production expenses just go to their shareholders, nothing more to creators or authors. I used to be a fan of Apple, but no more. They are starting do all the sneaky stuff that Microsoft used to do back when they were regularly getting sued. More than half of the publishers who have been caught in this sleazy deal have already settled. I expect the other two publishers and Apple will end up doing the same. |
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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Actually, you are 100% incorrect on this. Actually printing the books costs very little money. Many industry sources have said it averages less than 50 cents a book. Even when you factor in distribution and processing, the costs only rise to a couple bucks. Hell, I have friends that publish on create space/Amazon and even the printing costs there are only a small portion of their fees. The majority of the expenses are from things like editing, proofing, legal costs, and profit shares to the writers. Do you think actually printing DVDs costs more than producing the content? Personally, I do feel that ebooks should be cheaper than print counterparts. One of the many reasons I don't like them is that there is often no difference in cost and I feel there should be some sort of discount if I am forsaking the physical feel and material of a printed book. However, I can understand that the publishers and writers need to make money too and that ebooks may not be able to be as cheap as some would like. Also we have to face it, just like DVDs and digital downloads, ebooks will never be cheap enough for some. Now I'm not saying what Apple and the publishers are accused of doing is okay, but I don't believe the way Amazon was running their ebook business before was either. A lot of publishers had to choose between loosing large amounts of money on selling the price points Amazon pushed on them or just not allowing their books on the Kindle. Quite frankly, there has to be some middle ground between Apple's model that drove up prices, and Amazon's which was often unprofitable for the publishers. Not to mention, Apple's agency model also opened up the market to other players, who couldn't compete with Amazon's pricing or willingness to take losses on some titles. It is sort of interesting that while the model lead to higher prices, it did effectively end Amazon's monopoly on ebooks. |
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tuxedocat
Posts: 2183 |
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Wow, I must have been hallucinating those 12+ years I spent at two different book and periodical publishing companies doing price comparisons on paper, printers and binderies. |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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Amazon will be pleased.
I'll always be a paper book man til I close my eyes for good, as 100 years from now my books will still be available for my great grandchildren to read, barring another asteroid striking the planet again. Can the same be said for e-books? 
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LUNI_TUNZ
 Posts: 809 |
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Apple? Price-gouging? You don't say.
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javeska
Posts: 16 |
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I would say that I'm surprised but when it comes down to it the publishers are in big trouble. Amazon makes it extremely easy for authors to self publish these days and they take a much smaller percentage than the publishers do.
Jacking up the prices is probably one of the ways that they try to compensate. As much as I love Apple I can't say I would be entirely surprised that they are doing this. |
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Saffire
 Posts: 1256 Location: Iowa, USA |
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Macmillan's CEO, the company that's actively fighting the suit (Apple and Penguin haven't done much yet), has a statement up if you're interested: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/04/a-message-from-john-sargent
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Mesonoxian Eve
Posts: 1858 |
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As much as I despise Apple, I feel it's important to stand up for them in this case because Apple isn't a responsible party here. I'm hoping Apple takes a stand and fights the charge, pointing out the obvious: Amazon is bigger, so there is no anti-trust violation here. The case went up against Apple solely because it's now a multi-billion dollar business, and our government has a problem a company can make so much profit that's not burned in vehicles getting 22mpg. 
Here's to hoping Apple fights, and wins, against this crap. As for the publishers, let's hope the DoJ throws all the CEOs in jail, as just desserts for what this industry tries to do to its customers. So, in the past 3 years, we've got the recording industry on trial for price fixing and now publishers. For me, it sure does prove who the real pirates are, because this is blatant theft of money from customers, money that's never going to get returned. |
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Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
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Gilles Poitras
Posts: 480 Location: Oakland California |
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Everything I have read about this case to date, and not all that much has been released, states that Apple lets the publishers set the price and takes 30%.
How is that different than brick and mortar stores that sell at the publisher price? |
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Saffire
Posts: 1256 Location: Iowa, USA |
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The great irony of the situation is that this agreement was made so that Apple could actually compete in the ebooks market; if the DOJ wins, Amazon wins even bigger, and they're already massively dominant in ebooks. The DOJ thinks they've worked a solution into what they want to impose, but it's unclear if it works better than what's in place. It's a much more awkward situation than most people realize. |
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Soundmonkey44
 Posts: 1243 |
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Meh, guess its good that they are trying to get companies to make E-books cheaper, personally doesn't matter to me though as I only buy REAL books & comics.
VIVA PAPER!!! 
*shot repeatedly by environmentalists.* |
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