Tor delays new-release sales to library ebook supplier Overdrive

[ottdmk]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

It was my understanding that physical books don't fall under the agency model. Could be wrong on that though.

They're not. As they're not under Agency pricing, retailers can do across-the-board sales, as Chapters does with their "Buy 3 get 4" sales. I kinda miss those sales, but they're (the sales) the only thing about p-books I do miss.

To put another way: the only downside I find about Agency is that I don't get across-the-board e-book sales the way I used to get p-book sales. Still, I don't find the prices of e-books onerous compared to the paperbacks I used to buy, and the format has so many improvements imho that in some cases I'm willing to pay a little more then the paperback (MMPB) price.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by darryl

Not a very reasonable position. You are entitled to your opinion, but we have been over this many times. Amazon made a complaint in writing pointing out a breach of the law. A very straight forward, flagrant and stupid breach, and almost a textbook price fixing conspiracy. Which is of course what the trial court found and each successive court affirmed

I understand your personal feeling, which is just that, a feeling. How would this furious competition take place if prices were fixed at the retail level? Given that the DOJ only succeeded in averting the retail price fixing rather than stopping it, and that we now have it anyway and have had now for some time, what would be materially different?

And I keep telling you that you should try researching US anti-trust law a bit as well as the various pieces of the case that came out after the initial finding. Try reading Bork's textbook on US anti-trust law, The Antitrust Paradox. There are two basic philosophies to anti-trust in US legal circles. Cote followed the more restrictive approach, which is what Bork argues against.

The material difference is that Apple would have likely jumped fully into the ebook business, thus giving more competition. B&N has proven to be fairly incompetent, but Apple has show with their music store that they can do online digital stores quite well. Instead, Apple decided that it just wasn't worth the effort and retreated into a minimal ebook store. It appears that approach is about to change with Apple's new revamped ebook store and book app. We will see how much they push it.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

My personal feeling is that we would be in a better place now if the case had been dismissed and we had several seriously competing ebook stores forcing each other to be more responsive to consumers. Apple's ebook push now might have the effect of forcing Amazon to react and improve their store. We shall see.

Without looking at whether there was collusion or not, or whether the average major publisher's book prices are reasonable or not, I'm trying to figure out what kind of competition this would be - other than more stores - with Agency pricing... There's no competition if everyone charges the same price.

You mention Amazon might have had to improve their store? Fictionwise had a crappy interface, but their prices made it worth the hassle.

[darryl]

The whole price-fixing conspiracy came about because Apple did not want to compete on price. It has shown no interest whatsoever in doing so since, and Agency would prevent it in any event.

@pwalker8. You seem to persist in this fantasy that the price-fixing conspirators somehow did not breach anti-trust law, despite the decision of a number of Courts and the denial of Cert by your Supreme Court. The circumstances have been described many times as a textbook case, and a particularly stupid one at that. If US anti-trust law didn't catch this one it may as well not exist. Apple would not have done any better had the "rule of reason" been applied. Their actions certainly amounted to an unreasonable restraint of trade and killed retail price competition on Big 6 books. You continue to avoid the question which FizzyWater again raises in the previous post.

The Court has made its decision, the correct one, and the Appeals are exhausted. Time to get over it and move on.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

It appears that approach is about to change with Apple's new revamped ebook store and book app. We will see how much they push it.

There is only so much they can do with a new and improved app. Now instead of iBooks it will be called Apple Books? The reading experience from reading a book cannot be improved a whole lot without changing the medium (e.g. add multimedia). One huge advantage Apple has that it 100% controls which apps are able to buy books inside the app (hint: only iBooks or Apple Books, since the others are forced to pay Apple 30% of every purchase). Nobody can compete with agency pricing on Apple devices when you are forced to double dip. Sure you could sell books in an app if you hand over all your profit to Apple.

ETA: Now if Apple miracously manages to overtake Amazon in ebook market share by a huge margin through clever and misguided advertising. Coupled with the giant marketshare in cell phones. Coupled with the non-competition digital sales in the app store. If that is not a case for anti-trust, then I don't know what is. IMPO they are walking on very thin ice.

[darryl]

Quite right, Duckie. Miraculous is correct. The chances of Apple gaining any appreciable market share at Amazon's expense are IMHO approaching zero. Not because it is impossible (though it is very difficult), but because Apple is simply not interested in doing what is necessary to compete.

As the Appeals Court so eloquently put things in the course of actually considering Apple's arguments had a rule of reason approach been applied:

In short, Apple and the dissent err first in equating a symptom (a single‐retailer market) with a disease (a lack of competition), and then err again by prescribing the disease itself as the cure.

Apple was not interested in competing with Amazon then and there is no evidence whatsoever that it is interested in doing so now. Nor is there anything whatsoever to indicate that Apple has any prospect of doing so successfully.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by darryl

Apple was not interested in competing with Amazon then and there is no evidence whatsoever that it is interested in doing so now. Nor is there anything whatsoever to indicate that Apple has any prospect of doing so successfully.

I understand that. Just what I didn't understand why it was mentioned that the introduction of Apple Books might make any difference whatsoever.

[darryl]

Sorry if my post left the impression that I thought you didn't understand. I'm totally mystified by this one as well. And we're both in good company. The Appeals Court was similarly mystified by the argument. And pwalker8 has not so far felt inclined to share his reasoning, though in fairness he does say it is his "feeling". Perhaps it is not a matter for logic at all. Maybe Apple's mere presence in the market, no matter the cost, produces vague feelings of well being for some?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

There is only so much they can do with a new and improved app. Now instead of iBooks it will be called Apple Books? The reading experience from reading a book cannot be improved a whole lot without changing the medium (e.g. add multimedia). One huge advantage Apple has that it 100% controls which apps are able to buy books inside the app (hint: only iBooks or Apple Books, since the others are forced to pay Apple 30% of every purchase). Nobody can compete with agency pricing on Apple devices when you are forced to double dip. Sure you could sell books in an app if you hand over all your profit to Apple.

ETA: Now if Apple miracously manages to overtake Amazon in ebook market share by a huge margin through clever and misguided advertising. Coupled with the giant marketshare in cell phones. Coupled with the non-competition digital sales in the app store. If that is not a case for anti-trust, then I don't know what is. IMPO they are walking on very thin ice.

And how much does Amazon get paid when you buy books from other vendors on the Kindle platform? Oh, that's right, you can't buy books from other vendors on the Kindle platform. Apple charges _all_ vendors for in app purchases, it's just Amazon wanted a special deal. You can still buy Kindle books on an iPad by using the web browser and then downloading via the kindle app. I've used that method a number of times.

Since Amazon doesn't have a sympathetic justice department to run to anymore, I rather doubt they will get much traction for any anti-trust pushes to run off potential competitors.

As far as competition, if Apple starts pushing ebooks, that's going to be competition. What Apple has done with books is important not from the reading experience, but rather from the purchasing experience, in theory making it easier for the average reader to find books they may be interested in, which goes to what I've been saying for a while, where Amazon is vulnerable is if someone creates an ebook store that has better discoverability. We will see if it's significantly better or not when it comes out in a couple of months.

I doubt that Apple gets a huge jump in market share, but even if they can get it up to 20 to 30 percent, that will be significant competition and hopefully force Amazon to start improving their store.

Personally, I won't buy from Apple until I can remove the DRM from their books, but hey, maybe we will have something similar to the music situation occur. If you will remember, the music industry decided to allow Amazon to sell DRM free music to help them compete with Apple's iTunes store. If the various publishers allow Apple to sell DRM free ebooks, then they might start getting my business, especially if I find their ebook store easier to use.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by darryl

Sorry if my post left the impression that I thought you didn't understand. I'm totally mystified by this one as well. And we're both in good company. The Appeals Court was similarly mystified by the argument. And pwalker8 has not so far felt inclined to share his reasoning, though in fairness he does say it is his "feeling". Perhaps it is not a matter for logic at all. Maybe Apple's mere presence in the market, no matter the cost, produces vague feelings of well being for some?

Nope, there isn't anything mystifying about a deep pocketed company making a push into a strategic area. Apple is moving more towards money from services rather than just focusing on hardware sales. It's revenue stream from the iTunes app store and Apple Music streaming service have been going up quite a bit and are now a fairly significant part of Apple's growth strategy.

If you haven't been following what Apple has been doing, they have been investing significant resources into their ebook store since last year. They are also making a big push in the video/TV market with their TV app that made it's appearance about a year ago. Apple is currently spending billions in the video area. I doubt they will make a similar size investment in the ebook market, but it does appear that they are making a significant investment in that market.

As I said, nothing mystifying about it in the slightest, you just have to pay attention to what they are actually now doing rather than get stuck in the pro Amazon rhetoric from 8 years ago.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

And how much does Amazon get paid when you buy books from other vendors on the Kindle platform? Oh, that's right, you can't buy books from other vendors on the Kindle platform. Apple charges _all_ vendors for in app purchases, it's just Amazon wanted a special deal. You can still buy Kindle books on an iPad by using the web browser and then downloading via the kindle app. I've used that method a number of times.

That is splitting hairs. Google also charges for in app purchases, but they do not prevent an app from using other methods to pay for things - e.g. through a mini browser. Google even allows competitor app stores to be installed on Android. Apple? They cannot handle competitors. Buying books on the Kindle platform doesn't even make sense unless you specify. If you are talking about a Kindle as in eink Kindle then you can buy books on the device itself (with the browser) or for the device - can even be delivered. That nobody sells books with Amazon DRM for Kindles is not Amazon's fault. They offered to license it, but nobody took them up on it.

[darryl]

@pwalker8

You said:

My personal feeling is that we would be in a better place now if the case had been dismissed and we had several seriously competing ebook stores forcing each other to be more responsive to consumers. Apple's ebook push now might have the effect of forcing Amazon to react and improve their store. We shall see.

Fizzy Water asked:

Without looking at whether there was collusion or not, or whether the average major publisher's book prices are reasonable or not, I'm trying to figure out what kind of competition this would be - other than more stores - with Agency pricing... There's no competition if everyone charges the same price.

You mention Amazon might have had to improve their store? Fictionwise had a crappy interface, but their prices made it worth the hassle.

I would genuinely like to understand your reasoning. It just doesn't seem rational. You assume that had the case been dismissed we would now have several ebook stores. And that these ebook stores would be not just competing but furiously competing. How? Certainly not on the thing that is of major concern to the vast majority of customers, price. Certainly not on the quality of the books. There is simply no scope for meaningful competition amongst retailers let alone "furious" competition.

Please stop your evasions and answer the question asked. I'd really like to know!

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

I'm trying to figure out what kind of competition this would be - other than more stores - with Agency pricing... There's no competition if everyone charges the same price.

Exactly.
If the prices are the same, whatever competition survives will play out on other terms: service, support, catalog size, compatible hardware variety...

Those of us who were here before, during, and after the Conspiracy can remember that, before, the standard answer to the question of where to find the best prices was:

"If you're willing to shop around for sales, you'll do better than sticking with any one store.
But if you're only going to shop at one store, Amazon will be cheapest overall."

When Agency kicked in the answer was:

"The ebooks cost the same everywhere so you might as well go with the safest, biggest store. That is Amazon. Plus their ereaders use Pearl screens, that nobody but Sony has access to for now. iBooks? Those only work on Apple hardware and they still don't have Random House. Shortcovers is now Kobo and they have a cheap ereader at Borders."

After the conspiracy ended:

"Most of the generic epub stores are gone or folding, Nook is in deep trouble, iBooks only work on Apple hardware, and with Borders gone Kobo is invisible to mainstream readers. Oh, and Google is out there somewhere still fighting the Authors Guild."

Of course, there is Agency Part Deux:

"Big 5 books went up 20-30% everywhere. Other Tradpub prices are mostly the same everywhere. Indie prices stayed the same everywhere but a majority of those (1.5Mtitles) are Kindle exclusive because of Kindle Unlimited. If you prefer an epub reader, make friends with Alf so you can convert Kindle books to epub."

There is no price competition between the few remaining stores, just temporary promotions by the publishers.

And Amazon has increased their ebook share from 56% to 80% and more than doubled their print book market share from 19% to 50%.

Agency: the gift that keeps on giving... to Amazon.

In the meantime, interoperable epub in the US commercial market is, if not totally dead, certainly catatonic. Because if the prices are the same, the winner is the biggest player. Especially if the biggest player has the biggest catalog.

The reason collusion and price fixing are illegal is because they raise competitive barriers to newcomers and favor the bigger, *established* players by preventing the smaller players from trying things like discounted bundles, micropay rebates, rolling sales, and lightning sales.

That is exactly what happened.
Agency was the best thing to happen to Amazon and the worst thing to happen to readers.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Shad Plante

John Scalzi weighed in on this with a reasonable take:
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2018/07/...lending-thing/

I'm glad that multiple people are pointing out in comments that "Just borrow the print book!" is not a reasonable solution for people with disabilities.

I'm also really not a fan of breezy "The wait won't kill you" dismissals when this sort of policy disproportionately affects people with disabilities and people living in poverty (and that's a pretty big intersection).

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

[snip]

The reason collusion and price fixing are illegal is because they raise competitive barriers to newcomers and favor the bigger, *established* players by preventing the smaller players from trying things like discounted bundles, micropay rebates, rolling sales, and lightning sales.

That is exactly what happened.
Agency was the best thing to happen to Amazon and the worst thing to happen to readers.

And don't forget Amazon's MFN clause.