Quote:
Originally Posted by MattW
Here in Austria (and in Germany, Greece, Italy, Holland and France as well; and various other European countries), we have what is called "Buchpreisbindung" in German, which means that no one, not Amazon, not bookstores, no one is allowed to sell a book for anything other than the list price set by the publisher. This system has been in place since 1888 in Germany, for example.
Which doesn't automatically make it right, but at least shows that there is a valid argument that can be made along the lines of what Turow is saying -- the market isn't everything and even in the 19th century people realised that books are something that benefits from special proctection.
Whether or not such laws make sense in today's world of big publishers and the internet is open for debate, of course. All I am trying to say is that it's not as clear-cut as it may look. And while I am not a fan of big publishing, I personally don't trust that Apple & Amazon have only the good of the consumer in mind. They both don't sell books out of love for the medium.
Matt
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What's going on with Agency pricing isn't quite the same thing since it applies only to digital books and not paper books as well.
As far as Apple & Amazon go (or B&N or Kobo or Sony for that matter) they have the best interests of their business in mind above anything else of course.