Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
So it would not be an offence for one publisher to say to Amazon, "I'm only going to let you sell my books if you agree to act as an agent, rather than a retailer", right? It's the fact that that five publishers did so jointly?
|
I don't think the real issue in the suit will be agency pricing itself, whether the publishers agreed or not. There's no reason to believe that that, by itself, is price fixing.
The real issue is that the agency pricing agreements with the publishers and the retailers prohibit the publisher from charging one retailer less than another. I.e., Amazon is acting as an agent for HC, but HC is prohibited from selling its books through B&N for less than it does through Amazon. This is an agreement between competitors wrt prices and looks a lot like classic price fixing. The agency model doesn't.