A long time ago, in the US, there were certain manufacturers who attempted to set the minimum prices for which their products could be sold by stores - in a manner extremely similar to what it seems the big five publishers are trying to do now. This went on for a while, but ultimately was struck down as an illegal restraint of trade. Then, they got into that "anything goes" era, where the gummint simply caved to any and all requests of Big Business. But, AFAIK they haven't gone back to those sorts of minimum pricing agreements, at least not for physical consumer goods. They are still illegal. So, there is hope.
But yesterday, after the Sony store finished their shut-down for the big repricing, I checked out some of the price differences. It seems like they are pegging the e-book prices to the retail prices of the currently available p-book editions. So, new releases are selling (in most cases) for some discount off the hard back price, whereas older editions already out in paperback are selling for some discount off the paperback list price. I can kind of live with that, since I normally wait for the paperback edition to come out anyhow.
The one big exception seems to be Penguin. All their books in e-format are selling for what looks to be the full retail price of the hard back - with no discount whatsoever. Too bad - I used to buy books for a big university library and at the time I really liked Penguin. But at $25 for an e-book, I doubt I'm going to be buying much of their stuff any more.