U.S. Warns Apple, Publishers

[Crocoduck]

Justice Department Threatens Lawsuits, Alleging Collusion Over E-Book Pricing.

From the Wall Street Journal.

U.S. Warns Apple, Publishers

The Justice Department has warned Apple  Inc. and five of the biggest U.S. publishers that it plans to sue them for allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books, according to people familiar with the matter.

Several of the parties have held talks to settle the antitrust case and head off a potentially damaging court battle, these people said. If successful, such a settlement could have wide-ranging repercussions for the industry, potentially leading to cheaper e-books for consumers. However, not every publisher is in settlement discussions.

[Tank]

Very interesting. E-Books are definitely over priced considering there is no physical book, nor logistical cost. Effectively all the cost is the author, proofreading and editing. Once the content is finalised all you've got is advertising.

[Crow]

Very interesting. E-Books are definitely over priced considering there is no physical book, nor logistical cost. Effectively all the cost is the author, proofreading and editing. Once the content is finalised all you've got is advertising.

This is what really annoys me. I would certainly buy a lot more kindle books if the pricing wasn't more than that of a paperback.

[Amicale]

It annoys me, too. I love my Kindle, so I always check out freebie Kindle sites, like Pixel of Ink or KotC (Kindle on the Cheap) for free or discounted Kindle books. But in general, it's amazing how expensive e-books are. Especially considering it's not like you permanently have a physical copy of the book. Sites do go down, data is sometimes lost, e-book readers fail, etc. That's why when I buy an e-book, I either get them cheap or for free, and I only pay full price for one I really, REALLY want -- but even then, if the full price is close to the price of an actual physical copy, I just buy the real book and have it shipped to me.

I'm also annoyed when companies misrepresent themselves. For example, I was helping a Catholic friend find a fiction e-book she wanted to read, and the Catholic online store that publishes it advertised themselves as having the fairest, most inexpensive prices anywhere on the internet for e-books. Sure enough, I found the e-book on Amazon for 7 or 8 dollars less. I emailed the Catholic publisher to let them know a better price had been found, and they dismissed my email with "when we say we have the fairest, most inexpensive prices, we mean out of the available Christian or Catholic retailers on the internet." Go figure, lol.

[Tom62]

What pisses me off is that I can't buy Kindle books in America. Lots of books that I love to have are not available on the international market.

[Buddy]

What pisses me off is that I can't buy Kindle books in America. Lots of books that I love to have are not available on the international market.

It's the same thing with music for me. A lot of the music that I listen too is impossible to get legally in the US.

[Crocoduck]

What pisses me off is that I can't buy Kindle books in America. Lots of books that I love to have are not available on the international market.

It's the same thing with music for me. A lot of the music that I listen too is impossible to get legally in the US.

The same is true of many of the best TV shows.

[Tom62]

The same is true of many of the best TV shows.

As well as official music video's on YouTube  . Getting the message "Unfortunately, this video is not available in Germany, because it may contain music for which GEMA has not granted the respective music rights" all the time, makes me want to kill these copyright GESTAPO bastards.

[Asmodean]

The Justice Department has warned Apple  Inc. and five of the biggest U.S. publishers that it plans to sue them for allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books, according to people familiar with the matter.

I don't get it...

If a book comes out as a paper-and-ink book AND as e-book, the e-book is a dot-the-is kind of thing and I don't see why publishers can't price it as they see fit.

A book is good enough for most people, but if you are blind and/or lazy and/or easily bored while driving, audio books can be just the thing. If you are always on the go and have already spent a load of money on one of them Apple i-Somethings, e-books can be the better alternative. If you've bought the beforementioned Apple thing to read e-books, well, then you likely have the coin to overpay for them. If you have installed the ghastly i-Somethingorother on a Windows platform, The Asmos will come for you in your sleep 

[Tank]

The Justice Department has warned Apple  Inc. and five of the biggest U.S. publishers that it plans to sue them for allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books, according to people familiar with the matter.

I don't get it...

If a book comes out as a paper-and-ink book AND as e-book, the e-book is a dot-the-is kind of thing and I don't see why publishers can't price it as they see fit.

A book is good enough for most people, but if you are blind and/or lazy and/or easily bored while driving, audio books can be just the thing. If you are always on the go and have already spent a load of money on one of them Apple i-Somethings, e-books can be the better alternative. If you've bought the beforementioned Apple thing to read e-books, well, then you likely have the coin to overpay for them. If you have installed the ghastly i-Somethingorother on a Windows platform, The Asmos will come for you in your sleep 

As long as publishers don't collude to keep an inflated price they can charge what they like. That's the issue here. In the UK there as a big problem with construction companies colluding on government quotations. Those involved in the cartel divided up the business between themselves and deliberately quoted so the 'cake' was split up in proportion to business size. Over 200 companies were involved and they would freeze out any companies trying to buy their way into the market.

E-books are the biggest threat to publishing houses and their profitability that has ever happened. If publishers can keep E-books priced a little below conventional books they stand to make a lot more profit from them. Over the long term publishers have held the whip hand when it comes to what we read, if they were not prepared to invest a good few thousand pounds then a book would never make it to the shelves. Technically you or I can now publish a book for the cost of hosting it which would be a few pounds a year.

At the end of the day the Internet has devalued information to the point where many people consider it should be free and take no account of the cost of creating the information. I'm using 'information' in a broad sense here and include music, books and films as they can be cheaply digitised and distributed. Now this may be a backlash to the previous situation where the production of the distribution media required heavy investment but provided a pseudo-monopoly to the producer/publisher which allowed them to inflate the price.

If people can't make a decent living from producing original works many won't do it. They'll always be the Tolkien's of this world who will write for themselves and then publish. But I'm not sure all I want to read should be produced by hobbiests and obsessives. Take Terry Pratchett, he writes to make a living from it. His work has given me immense pleasure over the years, pleasure I may not have had if he could not have made a living from writing.

I think we are in a period of adjustment and in the backlash part of that adjustment. I hope in the future musicians, software designers, authors and film makers will become more valued and not just ripped off by people that steal their work.   

[Crocoduck]

A book is good enough for most people, but if you are blind and/or lazy and/or easily bored while driving, audio books can be just the thing.

I completely disagree. Audio books are not just for the blind, lazy or bored. Audio books are a wonderful way to enrich your life without having to stop everything and devote yourself to printed words.

Some might argue that it's the lazy person who sits on the couch, book in hand who is the lazy one. Unleashing yourself from print allows you to live life while enjoying a book. 

I wouldn't say I was bored today when I went for a walk as I listened to The Edge of Physics but I think the lazy thing to do would have been to stay on the couch and read the book.

Another reason for the audio book is if it's well read by the right person it's a art unto itself. Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter is better then any of the movies they made and much better then me trying to read the book.

[Asmodean]

A book is good enough for most people, but if you are blind and/or lazy and/or easily bored while driving, audio books can be just the thing.

I completely disagree. Audio books are not just for the blind, lazy or bored. Audio books are a wonderful way to enrich your life without having to stop everything and devote yourself to printed words.

Yes, yes... My and/or loop was incomplete.

Let us rephrase: Audiobooks are a way to go for those who, for whatever reason, are unwilling or unable to use printed ones.