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I think that this is actually a much bigger issue than Tobias realises. What Macmillan have done here is to use the leverage of their deal with Apple to force Amazon into the agency model for ebooks.
Do you really think that they (or any other publisher for that matter) are going to let it rest there?
Now that they have gotten Amazon to agree to the agency model for ebooks why not make them agree to it for the traditional print media also? Many years ago in the UK we had a price fixing system called the Net Book Agreement. This meant that the publisher put a sticker price on a book, and that was the price at which it had to be sold, whether through a large chain bookstore (who could negotiate big discounts) or by a small town independent bookstore (who couldn't).
The small booksellers loved the agreement as it enabled them to compete with the large stores on price. However our government's competition rules meant that the publishers had to abandon the policy ann over the years the large booksellers (both bricks and mortar and the e-tailers like Amazon) have used their power to negotiate bigger and bigger discounts from the publishers. That, by the way, means smaller and smaller levels of income for the authors.
I will watch with great interest to see what happens to both print and ebooks over the next few years.
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