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Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze
Yes, you could compare authors' incomes to Hachette's profits (or the income of its highest-paid author to that of its highest-paid employee -- I'm not sure which thing you mean).
I'm not certain what point you're trying to make, since that's a different relationship and I don't think anyone's attempting to vilify Amazon.
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An argument has been raised many times using the total annual revenue of Amazon and comparing it to the total annual revenue of Hachette and extrapolating that Amazon has an unfair advantage so therefore there can never be a fair negotiation. When you said the following...
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Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze
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The specific issue raised 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.
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.
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I thought you were making the same argument and was pointing out that by the same logic Hachette could never sign a fair contract with one of their authors. If that wasn't the argument you were making we can ignore it.
In regards to your second item....
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The article is about whether specific demands made by Amazon could have an adverse effect on the publishing industry. When articles about publishers' demands appear -- and past history indicates they will -- we'll be talking about the specifics of those demands.
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Context is everything and talking about specific demands without the wider context is pointless (imho).
Contract negotiations are seldom as simple as what is being portrayed. If the two companies are discussing two options and Company X favours Option A and Company Y favours Option B then Company Y might add demands to Option A that they know Company X will find distasteful. Their goal is really to drop Option A and move to Option B. It's pointless to argue about those specific demands in isolation and if they are good or bad for the industry. In this case they could just be a negotiating tactic.
The article is only talking about selective demands leaked by one side of the negotiation so it doesn't tell the whole story and doesn't set the context.