http://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-accuses-apple-publishers-e-1452278...

This doesn't come as a total surprise, but that doesn't mean it's any less important. Three things to consider:

1) Will the Justice Department win its suit? (my thought: yes)

2) Regardless of the outcome, will Amazon come out on top? (my thought: yes)

3) Are you worried about your titles? (me: no)

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Well, I don't really understand how your American system works, but 16 states have also filed suits:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/16-state-attorneys-general-sue...

If anti-trust laws have been broken, they have to be investigated, don't they?

 

 

Exactly, John. Simon & Schuster, Hatchette and Harper/Collins have already settled. Only Macmillan and Penguin have chosen to fight the charges that they colluded with Apple to keep the price of their e-books artificially high, while giving Apple a kickback.

Huh?

The thing that gets me is that none of these customers the DoJ is suing on behalf of will get any money back. If the point is that people have been wronged, aren't they entitled to be reimbursed?

I agree, Ben. It's the customers who paid higher prices for the e-books. I'd like to see refunds for those customers, but I don't know if that will be part of the settlement.

I agree, but I can live without refunds so long as the culprits don't get to keep the money. Charities, Wounded Warriors, something, but don't let this be a window of profit seizing for the miscreants.

Frankly, the problem is not reimbursing customers.  There, it's "buyer beware".  They paid the money willingly.

It's the authors, who lost big sales because their readers shied away from the prices, who should get reimbursed.  Of course that's an impracticality, so let's just be glad the bastards got their fingers slapped.

See Joe Konrath on the "Agency Model" today.  A very lucid explanation of how it hurt authors.

So they'll reimburse buyers?  Not much point in looking to the Author's Guild for representation of authors.

Customers are going to be reimbursed in some form, based on what I read. They're working on how that'll happen now.

I hear/read a lot of bitching about Amazon, but really. Turn it around. Amazon does a lot for Indie authors. If B&N and Smashwords did half as much, maybe they would be half as successful. Don't give me that yadda yadda about ... yeah Amazon sells other stuff besides books. B&N, et al should stop grousing and start thinking about how to help Indie authors be successful. They need to develop marketing tools like amazon. 

For years Honda and Mazda were the top sellers in the US car market. Ford and GM were in the toilet. Why? Because Ford and GM cars were horrible, got rotten gas mileage, and had terrible repair records. So what happened? Did Ford and GM say: kill Honda!  Kill Mazda!   No, they got off their R&D duffs and built better cars. 

Well, I thought the complainers were all the traditional folks: publishers, agents, trad-pubbed authors, and book stores.

Life was sweet when they took all the profits on the authors' sweat and tears.  It got even sweeter when they paid the author only 15-20 % off the net for e-books and had no work whatsoever.  And when they realized that those contractual terms were forever, they did a little dance.

 

What they are complaining about is that some authors are dropping them to go to Amazon with their new books.

 

As for B&N, my income from B&N is way below what I sell via Amazon's Kindle.  I expect it's the same with the print editions.

Yeah, I hear you. I don't think I've ever sold a print copy of either novel on B&N. Incidentally, my first New Orleans crime thriller, Absolution, is free today and tomorrow. Hope to pump up my sales even more. Currently #3 in Hard boiled mysteries. :)

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