Forum - View topicNEWS: Independent Bookstores File Suit Against Amazon, Major Publishers
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RyanSaotome
 Posts: 4210 Location: Towson, Maryland |
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This is just a last ditch effort for these brick and mortor stores to stay relevant. Amazon did nothing wrong from what I can see... they just know how to do business effectively.
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OniTasku
Posts: 79 Location: Santa Barbara, CA |
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Not exactly pertaining to the topic, but a bit of minor insight on the publishers listed.
Random House
Simon&Schuster
Hachette Book Group
Macmillan
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1860 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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So how profitable is Amazon? Oh wait, their business model is to low ball everyone else till they're the only game in town, then they'll rake in all the dough. There's only so much venture capital available before Amazon has to actually, you know, make money. I'm amazed it took this long for B&Ms to sue. |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7994 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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Frivolous lawsuit that will only cost them money they could have used to stay in business longer.
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Webbmaster62
 Posts: 41 Location: Ft. Worth TX |
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The world of business. We see it everyday. All about the mighty dollar. No caring for the customers. |
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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You can buy e-books through brick-and-mortar stores?
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Kalessin
 Posts: 931 |
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I'm not sure that there's really any basis for the suit, but I don't think that there's any question that Amazon is trying to monopolize e-book sales, and DRM helps that. DRM never helps the customer and is anti-competitive by nature.
However, as much as people generally despise monopolies, they're not actually illegal. It's abusing the power that a monopoly provides which isn't as well as certain practices which could lead to a monopoly. All in all, I don't think that much of anyone other than Amazon is all that happy about Amazon's near-monopoly of e-books - publishers included. As I understand it, if anything, the publishers don't want Amazon to have the power that it has, and they aren't too happy about the current situation (since it puts Amazon in a position to demand more money and whatnot, since publishers can't afford not to sell through them). So, suing the publishers for collusion seems like an odd move to me. And as much as I don't like the current situation with e-books, this move stinks of suing because they can't evolve enough to compete rather than any of the companies being sued having done anything illegal. |
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gorilla491
Posts: 67 |
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Tch, no one is completely innocent here. Well one side is worse than the other...let's just say it's more than "451 Degrees in Here" see what I did there?
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adam_omega
 Posts: 256 Location: Seven Seas |
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Even if you pick not to put DRM on a book, the ereaders now all use device-specific coding of some kind... KF8, Epub, etc. It's not like DRM is even that much of a factor.
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Kalessin
Posts: 931 |
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It's perfectly possible to just release them in an open format without any DRM (like pdf). It's just that most of the time, they don't want to do that either because they're too afraid of it being pirated and/or they want to lock you to their device and therefore try and force you to continue to buy books from them when you want a new e-book (and a lot of DRM is device or program-specific, helping to enforce that monopoly). |
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Gilles Poitras
Posts: 482 Location: Oakland California |
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Yes, however those manga publishers you list are only distributed, not owned, by the publishers. This suit could lead to cross platform standards for ebooks making it easier for the consumer to transfer them between their devices rather than being locked into one software platform. |
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2251 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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Someone answer me this:
What possible plus is there for a consumer to purchase an e-book from a smaller local retailer rather than a large company like amazon? If we're talking about a physical book I can see a lot of positives, like the ability to physically go to the store and browse, the atmosphere, the store employees, etc... But if we're talking e-books and, presumably, purchasing them through the local store's website, I see no benefit whatsoever. Aside from feeling good about supporting a local business, I suppose. |
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Dessa
 Posts: 4438 |
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I support this completely. Leave the DRM in, sure, but stop making these e-books that require specific devices or specific apps. Heck, I hate reading books on the computer, have no interest in an e-reader, but there's a few e-book-only releases I have interest in and WOULD buy, except they're formatted so that if you don't buy an e-reader, or buy the app/proprietary software, you can't view it. And why should I spend money to be ABLE to spend money.
If this thing passes, I'd be able to download any freeware e-book program, and then I could buy and read the e-books I wanted. |
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ConanSan
Posts: 1818 |
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I really hope no one happens to mention that with Viz that they're restricting sales of Ebooks from the UK or something thus bringing doubt to their innocence in this matter.
Oh, Oh whoops, I Might just have. Silly me. |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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The whole point of e-book is just past me. What good is buying a novel that you can't physically own and put on a shelf? I mean paper and ink may crumble and fade in hundreds of years, but one is never going to loss their entire paper library when a chip, or display screen fails in a e-reader. Maybe in 20 years, but I'll probably be dead by then, so as long as they keep printing books like they have since the 13th. Century I have no need for e-books of any kind.
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