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Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
Again, this is not price fixing. "Price fixing," despite the name, is ultimately not about a company setting a specific price; it's about entities that collude in anti-competitive behavior in order to control a market. The publishers are not secretly meeting in a smoke-filled room and collaborating on prices, or saying "Random House will get sci-fi, Macmillan will get the education market" etc. Publishers are not in a cartel who artificially restrict supply in order to boost price (e.g. De Beers and diamonds). McDonald's is not price fixing when it sets national prices for all of its franchises. Nor has the DoJ announced any sort of investigation of Apple, Amazon or the publishers.
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I wouldn't have a problem if Macmillan sold directly or through franchises and set the price. They aren't. They are selling through 3rd party retailers and pretending that they are "agents" . Other companies have done this, but they've done it discretely. Macmillan is the first company I'm aware of that has been stupid enough to come out and say, we need higher prices so we're going to fix the price.
btw John Sargent seems to disagree with you and believes it is price fixing. To quote from his latest blog entry...
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2) Will retailers have flexibility to price books at a discount? No, the sale price will be fixed by Macmillan. Retailers will promote and market books, but we will control the price for the book.
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As a consumer do you want a market place where all the goods you buy have the price set by the manufacturer? If you want to buy a new Ford Mustang it doesn't matter what dealer you go to it costs the same price?
The copyright laws give the author and publisher a temporary monopoly on selling a specific book. Now the publishers are using the monopoly to fix the price of that specific book. I've decided not to buy books from those publishers.