Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
One more time:
Six companies simultaneously fixed ebook prices at the same *higher* levels, forbidding discounting, and resulting in clear, measurable harm to consumers.
Whether it hurts Amazon or not is irrelevant to the trustbusters.
Whether they "meant well" or not is irrelevant.
If Amazon *had* done something wrong, *they* would be on the carpet facing the DOJ; they *were* investigated too, you know.
For all we know, their day in front of the trustbusters is right around the corner. Random house, too. And don't be sure B&N gets off scott-free. Once one of the BPHs rolls, the dominoes start falling and there's a lot more players benefitted from the scam than meets the eye.
Big money-making companies conspired, consumers were hurt, the feds are not amused. (And it's an election year.) That is the bottom line.
All else is just posturing and finger-pointing.
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Im sorry but there's more to it than that. According to a recent supreme court opinion a manufacturer can set minimum Prices for its goods under a doctrine called resale Price Maintainence . The court may just find that a group of manufacturers can do the same thing under certain conditions. In my view the publishers and other booksellers feel very strongly about stopping Amazon from monopolizing the retail market. Some may feel strongly enough that they may want to go all the way to the supreme court. I think the DoJ leaked this because they wanted to drive relcalitrant parties to the bargaining table. If that doesn't w
Work you might see a supreme court case and an extension of the resale price Maintainence doctrine