Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovejedd
Actually, I do believe there's no law against it in the US, either. The issue here is that the publishers colluded with each other to fix prices. If they had independently decided to sell ebooks at fixed prices there wouldn't be a lawsuit right now.
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The problem, as pointed out by the judge in the class-action lawsuit, if *one* vendor did it, they would lose more in sales to competitors that don't than they would gain by ripping off the unwary. That is why Penguin and co went after B&N to "punish" Random House and eventually "forced" them to join the gang.
(Remember the debate, just before the DOJ filing, that Agency Pricing was *helping* Amazon as well as small and medium, non-agency publishers?)
The problem is the US has a 60-year history of consumerism and there is an instinctive rejection of anything that openly and explicitly sacrifices consumer rights for corporate profits. It still happens more than it should (i.e., zero) but you get more than a few rebellions. American consumers do not willingly submit to shearing. Just ask Bank of America:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...gcM_story.html