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Forum - View topicNEWS: Apple Files Opposition to Dept. of Justice Settlement
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Tenbyakugon
 Posts: 801 Location: Ohio, United States |
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Who do you believe more, a corporation known for using underhanded tactics in their markets, or an Attorney General whom attempted to cover up his unintentional supply of arms to foreign militants?
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mgosdin
 Posts: 1302 Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA |
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Murphy's Law, Sub-Section 1: "Trust No One."
Oh, and "unintentional"? Says who? Mark Gosdin |
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Mesonoxian Eve
Posts: 1858 |
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Hachette was in the news again just this week as it's demanding its authors to sign contracts forcing them to raise prices of ebooks.
This isn't going to bode well for the team who just told the DoJ they're not fixing prices. |
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Tenbyakugon
Posts: 801 Location: Ohio, United States |
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A high-risk operation to attempt to begin with. I give Holder the benefit of the doubt in that I don't think it was intentional, however to try and cover it up defaces the USDJ and the U.S. government. Let's watch ourselves; this thread isn't about Fast and Furious. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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The attorney general. He didn't start that program. As for e-books, those things should be 99 cents maximum. They cost absolutely nothing to distribute, not even server load given how ridiculously small they are. If the original author wants to make money, sell a physical item. If you want your work to be well know and well read, distribute it yourself using your own form of pricing, or give it out for free. |
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egoist
 Posts: 7762 |
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They should all go to hell in my opinion. In the end there will just be a monetary settlement and they'll all continue doing the same crap, but in a more subtle way this time.
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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I'm as anti-IP as they get but this post is nonsense. So what if they cost nothing? This argument applies to literally any digital file. So if any company bothers selling a digital file, they have to sell it for $0.99 to suit you? No producer should be under any requirement to meet the demands of a poor/broken understanding of equilibria in economic theory (in this case, the assertion that the price must approach marginal cost in all cases). It's up to the authors to decide which model they prefer. Insofar as they have preferred to go through third party publishers to this point they think they are getting a greater return on their investment of time than they would get with self-distribution. As for "physical item" this pretty much forces an author to go through someone else, and perpetuates the very system that you are railing against here for pricing things too high. We don't need the government picking winners or losers. I don't care much about the DOJ settlement. This is a case of the "government giveth, the government taketh away," in a way. But the whole anti-trust/collusion nonsense is complete garbage based on an attempt to force reality to conform to some idiotic assumptions about equilibrium. The matter of book prices should be left up to buyers and sellers. If the price is too high, there is significant incentive to "cheat" and offer a lower price and break collusion. There can never be a permanent monopoly that is not enforced by some form of violence or coercion because incentives of high profits will encourage competition and suppliers prices will go up if they know they can make greater demands. |
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walw6pK4Alo
Posts: 9322 |
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It doesn't apply to any digital file. E-Books are text so the server cost isn't even an issue, not like Netflix or YouTube streaming video or even downloading mp3s from iTunes. So yes, they're overpriced.
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Saffire
 Posts: 1256 Location: Iowa, USA |
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Gilles Poitras
Posts: 482 Location: Oakland California |
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Not all e-books. Some are illustrated, then there is the issue of royalties to the author, the cost of editing (and good editing is very important), advertising overhead, the cost of office space, the percentage of the book sale that goes to the retailer (including e-retailers) etc. |
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Gilles Poitras
Posts: 482 Location: Oakland California |
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99 cents would not go to the author, the retailer would take a chunk, the publisher another for various costs including server costs and a smaller percentage would go to the author. |
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Mesonoxian Eve
Posts: 1858 |
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Perhaps you don't understand the implications of the case, but this has nothing to do with the government "giving", and the "taking away" is the collusion to force a price across multiple parties. This is illegal for a reason. Your statement about book prices being left up to the buyers and sellers is correct, but the DoJ is stating the case is because buyers aren't part of the pricing scheme. Your foundation of "99 cents" being nonsense is also flawed, because economics states this price will be inevitable, and may very well drop to zero. It's called competition, and the DoJ is now making sure it exists. It's going to be a rough few years coming, because too many people think like this:
Now that's nonsense. It's already been proven too many times to be wrong and it only takes one to look at the sales of Angry Birds to see why. |
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egoist
Posts: 7762 |
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Did eBooks even have a reselling value? How about lending it to a friend? Donating? It's hard to understand why they're almost the same price as a paper copy.
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Saffire
Posts: 1256 Location: Iowa, USA |
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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Heh, silly Apple; they do similar under-handed market manipulation in every single other aspect of their business and yet we're supposed to accept on their word that they weren't part of an effort to do the same with e-books? Of course, since they are the most lawsuit happy entity on the planet for years now it is no surprise to hear them push yet more litigation in an attempt to force their interests.
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