“Five big publishers have been setting the price of their e-books, instead of retailers, like Amazon, which had been selling e-books below cost to attract people to the Kindle. It’s legal for publishers to set the price — unless they conspired to do so,” Martin Kaste reports for NPR. “Class action litigator Steve Berman says that’s what they did, with the help of Apple and the new iPad.”
Full article and audio report here.
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Publishers say “We want to sell books at the same market prices for physical media!”
Steve Jobs says, “At those prices you’ll just be adding fuel to piracy”.
They agree on setting a low price and marketing it onto create a new digital platform.
Damn Collusive Bastards!
So Apple colluded with the publishers to give the publishers to freedom to sell their books at whatever price they want….. Damn
What happened to the old proven method of Amazon dictating what books should sell for, undercutting all competition against the will of the publishers and take 70% of the proceeds.
If I had a racket going like that, I’d be suing too!
Apple drove up the price of eBooks.
Apple does many great things, but they generally don’t provide great pricing. For example, $3.99 to rent a movie? Many of them I can get at RedBox for $1. And RedBox have higher overhead…
1) Redbox lacks the convenience of renting movies from your home, and has less of a selection. That is worth something.
2) How do you know that RedBox has higher overhead? It’s possible, but with all for the development and manufacturing costs of Apple, plus licensing to the movie studios, Apple isn’t just providing a product they got for free to you.
3) Upon renting a movie, I can view it on my computer, my iPhone, my iPad or my Apple TV. I can start it in one place and continue it on the go. With RedBox, I have to drive to the RedBox, pick from the limited selection, get a disk, drive back home, watch it, then drive back to the box and return it. Since time is money, the $3 extra bucks doesn’t seem exorbitant to me.
If your time is so valuable, where do you find the time to watch a movie?
DMac didn’t say S/He doesn’t have the time.
DMac said that time has value.
You are inferring, possibly incorrectly, that valuable time is no time.
i never quite understand the logic of posts like that, though my buds say there is no logic, probably a fool with bile to spew somewhere.
it does take time to drive to red box, to the blockbuster dollar machines, never knowing what they will have in stock, then driving home, watching on one device, then taking it back. yeah, my time is more valuable than that to save 2 or 3 bucks.
also interested in fact source for red box having higher overhead than apple. that would be interesting to read, if it’s true.
For your time to be valuable there is no requirement for you to have little of it.
Time is money.
I sell Mercedes-Benz vehicles, and whenever someone starts crying about a few dollars, I like to remind them of that.
Sometimes we will have a physician, for example, threaten to leave and shop elsewhere, over a few hundred dollars.
I like to say this to those people:
“You make a pretty good living. Your time on the clock is valued at ‘x.’ Considering how much of your time is taken by your carreer, your free time should be worth even more. How much more of it are you going to spend shopping for a vehicle? Let’s get you out of here, in your new car, so you can enjoy the time you have with your family.”
Easily a dollar in gas to get the dvd then another dollar to return it. Thats 3 dollars just off the bat. Do you want me to continue? Didn’t think so.
To add to DMac list,
4) Standing in line while I wait for someone to find/rent a movie. There are three RedBoxes near were I live and there is always a line of people.
5) Everyday you ‘forget’ to return the movie, is a $ charged to you.
These two items should be considered when adding to DMac list.
More accurate to say that Amazon artificially depressed the price of ebooks and that Apple freed publishers to establish their own pricing. The market will eventually determine the price of ebooks. If you don’t like the price, don’t buy them! Meanwhile, then are many classics available for free.
Wow! The depths dedicate Apple fanboys will rationalize anything they do. The actions taken by Apple, in collusion with the big 5 publishers, RAISED ebook prices. (What the retailer earns is irrelevant. Nevertheless, the agency model increased Amazon’s take.)
I fail to see how this collusion will allow the “market” to determine the prices of ebooks.
And the depth of which those that don’t want to be considered fanboys will go to show their ignorance. Nothing has been proven, your assuming collusion, which may or may not exist. This guy might lose the suit and his shirt for trying this case.
Apple letting them set the prices is the very definition of the opposite of “collusion”. So, he’s not trying to be ignorant, he’s straight up telling a lie.
Apple should counter sue for frivolous lawsuits, and sue amazon directly piercing the veil of make-believe that amazon isn’t’ behind this pr stunt wasting court time.
Retailers margins are typically 55% o. Average
So right. I pass on so many ebook purchases because for the value they are overpriced – by Apple’s 30% cut! I don’t necessarily begrudge that 30% because Apple has its costs in bandwidth, storage and personnel. But do retailers cut equal Apple’s 30% margin? I’ve never heard that mentioned.
Amazon can still cut prices and compete if they want to, although Apple is traditionally not of that mindset.
What peeves me about iBook prices is the trend for many Name writers inflating prices of old releases beyond or equal to the price of paperbacks. The savings in print costs is not apparent at mist current pricing, which is a shame. This is caused by the publisher’s and Apple’s cut I suspect.
I’ll buy a used book rather than an ebook, push comes to shove.
Hey silly….for the publishers the overhead is actually higher on eBooks. Fact is the cost of printing most any book is less than a dollar or two. That amazing savings by having an eBook is just a fantasy.
This will change somewhat as eBook are beginning to sell more than paper books spreading the overhead more.
“Apple drove up the price of eBooks.”
When you star with a lie like that, whatever makes out think we’ll bother to read any further?
I think if e books were around 2 to 6 dollars, they would sell like hotcakes. I just go to the deals section, and there are some good ones for anywhere from 2.99 to 5.99. It would have to be a damn good book for me to plunk down 13.99, and I haven’t yet……
I always love it when the “Everything should be free for me or dirt cheap” crowd comes out, shameless, arrogant and mostly ignorant.
Yeah those evil publishers… How dare they should be allowed to charge the amount they think their work is worth and make money on me.
Evil indeed for Apple to practice this evil capitalism thing. Government or Amazon should force these evil writers to sell their stuff for peanuts, so I have plenty of money to be an a$$hole.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/89656
If those evil publishers had their way and could price them at any level they could, I’m sure that they would think their works were priceless. Say a good value for priceless would be $100 and upwards a book. Then I wonder if these funny people that love to defend capitalism to the bone, would suck it up and pay THAT Much….doubtful. Highly unlikely. Guess us ‘ignorant and shameless’ crowd always though that capitalism and competition go hand in hand.
Really? That’s your argument, against being ignorant and shameless? That if they were allowed they would price their books at $100?
You know, some books are really expensive. I’ve paid $60 for a book and over $100 for a book. It was worth it.
If the sookie stack house books were $100, I wouldn’t buy them.
Think the lack of demand that comes with a high price might “force” them to offer better prices?
No, in your world, the government dictate prices and you have paradise, right?
Let me guess, the USSR is your idea of utopia, right?
The prices were low… but the shelves were bare. I’m sure it was those greedy capitalists refusing to produce for the good of society that caused the shelves to be bare ,right? Nothing wrong with your pricing theory… no way!
PS- I am sometimes amazed at the stupidity of americans… but then I remember, they have free schooling.
It was worth every penny.
PPS-I am always amazed at the stupidity of generalizing idiots. USSR?!? How 1991-ish!
I am always amazed at the ignorance of those who don’t learn anything from history.
I don’t agree that poor education is the main problem. American education is all over the map, from best in the world to a step below central Africa, but I think that the bigger problem is that Americans are too insular. Most Americans don’t travel, and believe that they have the best of everything. Of course, a small subset of Americans pretty much do have the best of everything, but the rest of the population has not yet received the memo: the world is passing us by. And American education is hardly free. I pay $9000 a year in school taxes with no one in the school system, and even American public colleges and universities are achingly expensive for most young Americans.
It was my fault, blame YT.
You can always log into redbox online and see what they have, reserve it, then go and get it. It doesn’t stop the trip the redbox, but since I’m likely going to the grocery store where the redbox is anyway, no big deal. That said, the convenience of the Apple model is really good too.
Frankly, Amazon isn’t impressing me.
The Kindle version of a Stephen King ebook coming out this November is priced almost $10 higher than the hardcover.
How does THAT make sense??