Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
The US long ago ceased frowning on "combinations in restraint of trade". I have actually seen it said, by governmental individuals, that monopolies are a good thing because they give the companies involved more money, which will then allow them to "innovate". This has led me to wonder who such people are getting paid by, since innovation has rarely if ever come from big, established companies whose markets are secure; it's always been the province of small, struggling companies that need a means to compete other than existing market dominance.
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This is not only not true, but it's easily disproved. The Microsoft antitrust issue wasn't that long ago, and that is generally known.
The DOJ's anti-trust division filed over 70 criminal charges last year, and was involved in a lot more civil actions. I.e., they undid a merger involving Dean's Farm and another dairy producer, and they restricted Ticketmaster's merger with LiveNation.
The fact that you don't know something is happening doesn't mean it isn't happening. And, yeah, the Dean's Farm case did get slightly less publicity than the browser wars.
In the US, the issue with the agency model isn't the model itself; everyone who knows anything about the legal issues knows that (this is, for example, the iTunes approach. Also the eBay approach). The issue is with the contract provisions prohibiting a publisher from selling a book at a lower price through another reseller. I.e., they can't sell a book through Amazon for $10 and through B&N for $8. I don't know if these most favored nation clauses violate antitrust or not - but they are certainly worth looking into. But I'm not sure what the benefit to the consumer would be if these were prohibited.