“British authors have condemned as ‘deeply worrying’ reports that Amazon is now pressing for improved terms from publishers in the UK, as its showdown with Hachette in the US continues to be played out in public,” Alison Flood reports for The Guardian.
“According to book industry bible the Bookseller, to whom UK publishers spoke on condition of anonymity, Amazon is putting publishers under ‘heavy pressure’ to introduce new terms,” Flood reports. “The Bookseller reports that these include the proviso that ‘should a book be out of stock from the publisher, Amazon would be entitled to supply its own copies to customers via its print-on-demand facilities,’ and that ‘books cannot be sold for a lower price than Amazon’s anywhere, including on a publisher’s own website.'”
“The Bookseller’s editor Philip Jones said the ongoing negotiations ‘indicate a direction of travel that would see [Amazon] take a sizeable control over both a publisher’s inventory and its marketing,’ and that “publishers spoken to – and obviously they will only speak on condition of complete anonymity – have every right to be concerned. This is a form of assisted suicide for the book business, driven by the idea that publishers are a sickly lot unable to run even the most basic operations efficiently,'” Flood reports. “The Society of Authors chief executive Nicola Solomon called the print-on-demand clause ‘deeply worrying,’ and said that Amazon was ‘already far too dominant in dictating ebook prices. No one company should have such dominance or be the principal commercial driver of an entire industry.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In response the U.S. DOJ said “uh, derr, uh… duuuuhhh,” drooled a bit, and deposited a load into its collective diaper. U.S. Federal Puppet Denise Cote then offered, “Here, let me rubber-stamp that for you.”
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Arline M.” for the heads up.]
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