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Originally Posted by stonetools
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Boil it down to bullet points :
1.The publishers need detailed sales data to calculate whether a publisher exceeds its"discount quota".
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Yes. And potentially other terms of the settlement.
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2. The retailers don't provide such data now, and won't, unless ordered by the courts.
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Uncertain, but likely. It's possible the terms were crafted based on data that's already provided to publishers--but even if that's true, the vendor (s, possibly, except we all know they're only talking about one vendor) has no requirement to *keep* providing exactly that data.
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3. The courts don't have the legal authority to order retailers to do this, since they are not in the lawsuit.
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They've got some measure of authority, but yes, it's very limited what terms of a settlement can apply to people and companies not directly involved. They could find as a matter of law that some data is required to support healthy businesses, and demand that data be turned over. However, I strongly suspect the courts are not going to decide that "ebook retailers have a legal obligation
in general that requires turning over exact lists of what-sold-for-how much," considering that pbook stores are not required to do anything of the sort.
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4. Even if the publisher could correctly calculate the "discount quota", its unclear what the remedy is.
5. Even if 1-4 could be fixed, its unclear who would have a right to recover.
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That last is a good point... if Amazon fails to turn over the data, or is found to have been underselling... who is the harmed party that could bring a lawsuit? Even if the new contracts demand compliance, what's the damages for breach of contract?
I could see other bookstores being the harmed parties... but they don't have access to the data that would be necessary to bring a case.