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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
However, "convince the public that they should pay more" is not a valid reason for collusion....
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True. But it
is a valid argument for setting final or near-final prices at retail, which is legal in the US.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
And if the problem was "Amazon was dominating the industry! We needed to stop them!" the solution was simple... stop selling to Amazon, and support other retailers.
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Again, that's not an option.
The NY Times had an article today about how a small publisher decided not to work with Amazon due to their policies:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/bu...pagewanted=all
One little tid-bit is that in order to stop doing business with Amazon, the Educational Development Corporation also had to stop doing business with Baker & Taylor, which is a major book distributor. Thus this will force other bookstores to find a new way to order those books, presumably directly from the publisher.
These kind of maneuvers aren't an option for big pubs. As I mentioned above, Amazon would have a field day blaming the publishers for denying Amazon customers access to their books, and publishers would lose sales. It'd be an unmitigated disaster.