A lovely smackdown for DOJ opponents

[BeccaPrice]

Dan Meadows does a lovely smackdown on people like Scott Turow and other defenders of traditional publishing.

I'm putting this in the General Discussions forum rather than the News forum because I'm not sure how much of this is actually news anymore.

[SteveEisenberg]

Rather infamously, Melville was paid a grand total of less than $600 for his masterpiece Moby Dick.

I guess this more or less matches to what Wikipedia says:

The book never sold its initial printing of 3,000 copies in his lifetime, and total earnings from the American edition amounted to just $556.37 from his publisher, Harper & Brothers.

As I calculate it, this means he was paid about $5.00 a copy in 2012 dollars. Tax free.

Lack of advertising? It's hard to do strong advertisements for a book that got uniformly bad reviews.

Do any of the self-published authors here want to share with us how much money they clear for books selling under 3,000 copies over a period of many years?

This could end up being extraordinarily bad news for Penguin, MacMillan and Apple if they actually force an annoyed DOJ into court.

Or not, since the Justice Department wins about half of anti-trust cases that go to trial. Anyone who is sure what a court would decide doesn't understand the situation.

P.S. Melville didn't need Smashwords. He needed an agent.

[fjtorres]

Yes, he does.
A good read.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

P.S. Melville didn't need Smashwords. He needed an agent.

He didn't need either - he needed a public!

[HansTWN]

"Yes, your honor, we did it. But we've got a pretty good excuse!" Got to love that.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

"Yes, your honor, we did it. But we've got a pretty good excuse!" Got to love that.

When I read, " Very few, if any, of the letters substantively refuted the claims of collusion, instead using unsubstantiated claims of Amazon’s predatory pricing as justification for the publishers’ actions.", I couldn't help but be pleasently reminded of Stonetools' posts from a few months ago.

[crossi]

One of the comments said that Amazon was unique in having other revenue streams. Like Google and Apple whose net worth are much higher than Amazon's don't. Their investors would be shocked to hear it.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

"Yes, your honor, we did it. But we've got a pretty good excuse!" Got to love that.

Yet another example of one of my bugaboos, the dubious paraphrase in quotation marks technique. Just don't try it if you turn pro.

P.S. Yes I know you didn't claim any particular publishing executive said what you put in quotes, putting you, HansTWN, far above the Jonah Lehrer level.

Most of the publishing execs knew this kind of thing has to be done with winks. If they do lose their anti-trust case because of a verbal slip, that will be the reason. It is generally legal for companies to fix prices so long as the collaboration is basically non-verbal -- see airfares.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

It is generally legal for companies to fix prices so long as the collaboration is basically non-verbal -- see airfares.

Airfares aren't the *best* of examples for (wink-wink) price-fixing as it is a somewhat competitive business with two distinct cost structures, constantly changing costs and prices, and a history of *dropping* prices when costs do drop.

The way the US airlines work is one raises prices and if the outcry isn't too bad and none of the others sees it as an opening to take market share away, others follow suit. But as often as not, somebody sees it as a way to beef up their seat loading by staying pat and making sure consumers know about it.

HDTVs are a better example of *attempts* to fix prices by ad-hoc carteling.
Samsung started the ball rolling early this year:
http://hdguru.com/will-samsungs-new-...xclusive/7317/
Sony and others quietly followed.
http://hdguru.com/sony-joins-samsung...510/#more-7510

Of course, by now, significant discounts *are* available.
Mostly because other vendors saw advantage in *not* going along.
Wink-wink agreements don't last.

That's the main reason why carteling needs explicit agreement to work.
(And why the "nameless" BPH rep want Apple's assurance they would be one of 4 or 5 before committing to the price fix, according to the DOJ email evidence.)