Thread: Lawsuit Against Agency Model Balloons
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Old 10-07-2011, 12:41 PM   #57
Kali Yuga
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres View Post
One, probably not.
But five/six, acting in concert?
More, *switching* from wholesale to agency? How common is that?
About as common as a whole new medium taking shape and heading for wide-spread adoption.

Or as common as Apple telling every big music label that "either we sell your songs for $1 each, or we won't sell your stuff on iTunes." (A huge change, by the way, from retailers paying up front for physical LPs, tapes and CDs, and getting pricing and/or discounting latitude.)

Or as common as the music labels getting together to push back, and get Apple to accept variable pricing as high as $1.40 per song.

I.e. given the massive change to the market, it would be surprising if the industry didn't undergo a radical change in its pricing structure as well.

And let's face it, the wholesale method of pricing is basically ramming a physical retailing model onto digital goods. Amazon does not pay up front for 100,000 digital copies of the latest John Grisham novel; they do not take the risks or costs of storing 100,000 copies in their warehouses; they do not return the "unsold copies" to the manufacturer.

The only reason why people are in a snit over this is because of the perception that agency pricing increases costs. Considering that $10 was not the default price across the board, that B&N and Sony (remember them?) sold their new ebooks at pretty much the same price as the agency books, and I might add that I've seen many non-agency books go for very high prices, I have my doubts that the reality is anywhere near as bad as the perceived changes.


Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
A further question the court might be interested in is why do agency *only* on ebooks but not on print books or audio books.
Because those are physical items where it makes sense to use a wholesale model.


Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Again, I doubt the final outcome will settle anything in time to make any difference in the current course of the ebook evolution but these are not frivolous lawsuits....
They may or may not be frivolous, but don't kid yourself about the motivation of the attorneys who are bringing the suit. They are well aware that they're suing companies with deep pockets, and are looking for a payout rather than pursuing a just cause.
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