[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

This article from Melville House[/URL] takes a similar approach (and claims to have even more anonymous "insider" details): calling things like the pre-order system "standard." Amazon's inhouse dedicated Hachette employee is also apparently "standard."

Originally Posted by FJTorres

All we know for certain is that money-grubbing multinationals are engaged in confidential contract negotiations and one side is apparently breaking NDA to engage in a whisper campaign of rumor and innuendo and to raise a mob and put public pressure on the other camp. The sort of thing usually requires spin and misrepresentation and lies of one sort or another. The channels through which these "leaks" are coming all have vested interests in this "fight" and track records that are far from clean. Until somebody comes clean and speaks on the record, putting their name and legal liability on the line, take everything with a pound of salt. You are very likely being played.

The Guardian underlines Bookseller's cred in the second sentence of the article in an attempt to make a distinction between unsubstantiated rumor-mongering and a source they deem to be reliable. When we report unsubstantiated rumors regarding, say, a photoshopped picture of a new e-reader leaked in Technofetishist's Gadget-Grope Daily, we're talking about rumor in a different sense.

Suggesting that The Guardian has a "vested interest in this 'fight'" seems a tad extreme. They have a political outlook that would tend to favor smaller publishers, but characterizing them or Bookseller as having an unusual amount of bias, or characterizing Hachette and/or the unnamed publishers as "money-grubbing" "unclean" "liars" and Amazon as the white knight, seems a wee tad hyperbolic. For one thing, Amazon isn't a philanthropic organization. All of the parties involved are focused on making money and all are, in the absolute sense, "unclean."

The specific issue raised -- regardless of whether some "moneygrubbing liar" emerges from the shadows exuded by their supposed dishonesty -- seems to be whether Amazon is right to push for total control of pricing and publishing in every case. This speaks to the question of whether or not Amazon's advantage is unfair in specific cases -- a question that is not answered by inferences against inferences; by ad hominem about the writer who happens to ask or the anonymous publisher who happens to complain.

It seems to me that this issue involves a question that FJTorres and I discussed on another thread at some point, which is whether it is always permissible for a powerful negotiator to pressure a party without leverage (which might not even be true in this case) to sign a contract that turns out to be unfair. Studying the history of recording rights in the North American music industry amounts to a course on that subject. One lesson it teaches is that certain things which producers and labels asked for from the '60s to the '80s were deemed to be a priori unfair. I think we'd have to know more about the publishers that are complaining today to know whether or not that lesson applies.

You can't have it both ways. Either the pre-order system (and other services) provided by Amazon is vital, valuable and negotiable; or it's not and you can live without it. Judging by how authors and pundits on social media have been screaming about just how important Amazon's preorders are for the welfare of a new book, I'm going with valuable.

I'm not sure that the situation is quite so Boolean. It's possible to find Amazon's POD/pre-distribution and price-lowering models valuable without expecting them to apply universally to all of the products offered on Amazon's site. The mere fact that some products are offered by Amazon Prime and others are not, and that other sellers are allowed to sell products in the Amazon Marketplace under various conditions, suggests that variables are permitted and different models might apply. No one distribution model is universally applicable even in the U.S. store -- let alone in every Amazon store in the world, let alone as specified in the contract of every publisher with which Amazon negotiates a deal.

If a publisher feels they are not in a position to negotiate a contract that might have an adverse effect on their business because Amazon is the gatekeeper, then it is possible that that specific publisher might have a point. It is also possible they might not.

You can be the fairest company in the world and still promote policies that prove to be insufficiently competitive according to the standards of every business and every country in every case. However much we might enjoy its prices and customer service, Amazon is likely not even the fairest company in the entire world; hence its policies are fallible; hence, negotiation that can't be leveraged might be an issue if the obstacle to leverage does turn out to be Amazon.