Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
Thanks for that Jeffery. Let's think about this, if the shoe were on the other foot. Let's say MacMillan had decided not to allow Amazon to sell it's ebooks (as they have with libraries), would that be okay?
Do retailers have the right to stock and sell a product -- say Dial Soap in place of another say Irish Spring.
If a supermarket chain has a falling out with a soap manufacturer because that manufacturer wants to set the retail price for that soap and they pull it from their shelves is that despicable behavior?
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Macmillan has not forbidden Amazon to sell the ebooks, or the paper books for that matter. If they would have, yes they would not look good. As they do not in some other facets of their business, but that is not that important to this case. If we involve every stupid (in our eyes) business decision of any party involved in this conflict neither publishers, authors, retailers or customers (us) come out without blemishes.
These types of retail tactics happen more often, but usually after rounds and rounds of negotiations. These may or may not have happened, but we don't know. And usually the retailer communicates nicely what is happening, something Amazon surely has not done.
The problem partly is, as I have indicated before is that Amazon is
not stocking any ebooks, it simply hosts them and has the infrastructure to sell them.
In case of the soap, everyone directly involved has a right to find the behaviour of the store despicable, from the factory workers to the loyal customers. I guess people that lost jobs due to similar practices by for example Walmart or Ahold or any carmanufacturor are not too happy with this kind of action.