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Originally Posted by fjtorres
Suddenly, its 2014 all over at the NYT, huh?
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You mean, good journalism once again, right
Seriously, I would have thought you would have found
yesterday's article has enough Amazon-friendly paragraphs to be reasonably balanced:
Quote:
The publishers settled the case. Apple lost at trial and lost again last month on appeal.
Judge Raymond J. Lohier Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, concurring with the majority, saw some merit to Apple’s and the publishers’ argument but said that “more corporate bullying is not an appropriate antidote to corporate bullying.”
Whether it is appropriate for the government to provide an antidote remains to be seen.
“Antitrust for the last 30 to 40 years has focused on economics — the price that someone pays for something,” said Michael Carrier, an antitrust expert at Rutgers School of Law in Camden, N.J. “It is an ill-fitting tool to address concerns about a company’s effects on culture.”
One indication of the tough road Amazon’s critics have is that the Justice Department official in charge of the antitrust division, William J. Baer, last month celebrated Amazon’s “disruptive business model” in e-books, saying it “has continued to stoke competition.”
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Since then, S&S renegotiated their contract without drama, Hachette stopped stalling and negotiated, and the rest of the Manhattan Syndicate reached deals allowing them to raise *their* ebook prices... and saw sales plunge.
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Quarterly financials, as Bezos would likely agree, mean next to nothing. And decline doesn't mean plunge. And this is after
a good year in the heart of the digital transition.
However, there's one thing I agree with in what I quote from you above. Amazon seems to be, for now, treating publishers more gently. It could actually be that Authors Guild tactics are working.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Lost somehow in all the whining is that nothing they complain about actually harms consumers, that antitrust is about consumer harm and not about protecting entitled authors seeing declining sales or B&M retailers unable to adapt to the internet.
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It should be pointed out to anyone new to this that "consumers" here doesn't mean the average reader, but rather the people who buy new books shortly after release.
You are correct that the thrust of US antitrust enforcement, in recent years, has been consumer protection rather than, as previously, protection of smaller businesses. But in other countries Amazon does business, the approach is different. And in the US, the law is vague enough that the enforcement emphasis can change over time.