“The DOJ investigation into Apple [AAPL] and its alleged collusion with big publishing companies to raise e-book prices may be a painful affair, but the end result could still surprise, and could work out quite badly for the complainant in the case, Amazon,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld. “…At the point Apple elected to enter the business, Amazon had been putting the squeeze on publishers to deliver books at ever lower prices, while meanwhile making it increasingly difficult for smaller, independent vendors to match its prices.”
“I’m interested to find out if Amazon’s original attempts to squeeze e-book prices can really be seen as legitimate, merely because the world’s biggest online book retailer had some small fry competition,” Evans writes. “Or, as I believe, if it’s price-lowering attempts constitute another form of abuse of market power.”
Evans writes, “If you read e-books you may believe that lower book prices is good for you. Trust me, it isn’t. You only need to look at the transformation of the big hits coming out of the music industry from the diversity of yesterday to the mass market X-Factor tosh peddled today to see what the future of creative business in a low rent age can be… I’d argue that people who create content in any medium should be paid enough to focus on it.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
Related articles:
Antitrust experts: Apple likely to beat U.S. DOJ, win its eBook lawsuit – April 12, 2012
Why the market shrugged off the Apple antitrust suit – April 11, 2012
What’s wrong with the U.S. DOJ? – April 11, 2012
Macmillan CEO blasts U.S. DOJ; gov’t on verge of killing real competition for appearance of competition – April 11, 2012
U.S. DOJ hits Apple,major publishers with antitrust lawsuit, alleges collusion on eBook prices – April 11, 2012
U.S. DOJ may sue Apple over ebook price-fixing as early as today, sources say – April 11, 2012
