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Originally Posted by Andrew H.
A monopoly is significant control over a market, not a product. Otherwise the term is meaningless - i.e., Coca-Cola has a monopoly over Coke products; Pepsi has a monopoly over Peps products, Apple has a monopoly over Apple products, etc.
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Coca-Cola and Pepsi can't say "you can only buy directly from us at triple the price that our distributors are offering".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew H.
This is what got Motorola in trouble - they have patents that they agreed to make part of the 3G cellphone standard. But they do not appear to be offering them on a FRAND basis to Apple. This means that the anti-trust exemption does not apply to them and thus they may have violated anti-trust laws.
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The publishers get the right to have a monopoly over specific titles, shouldn't that right come with some duties as well?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew H.
Not directly, although they do have influence - mismanagement of our library's expansion a few years ago led to the library board being replaced. And more generally, the board has to justify its budget to the city council, which they tend to do by showing the number of people using the library.
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Indirectly the publishers get their profits from the consumers, that doesn't mean that the consumers get to make decisions on the financial management of the publishing houses.
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Originally Posted by Andrew H.
Most publishers don't make their e-books available to libraries at all, though. And of those that do, I think RH is the only one that makes its new releases available. So we're almost in a situation now where libraries won't have e-books. I'm not sure that there are any good choices, really.
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They can't stop a library from having print versions of the books. Why would they get to deny access to the digital versions?