CNN Headline breaking news:
Attorney general expected to announce an anti-trust lawsuit against Apple and others for price-fixing, source tells CNN
Some more on this at Bloomberg:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-11/u-s-files-antitrust-lawsuit-against-apple-hachette.html (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-11/u-s-files-antitrust-lawsuit-against-apple-hachette.html)
The publishers are looking to settle and that will be the likely outcome. The market has shrugged this off and Apple share are up about $5 so far today. It's pretty uncommon for these suits to actually become a prosecution and they are fairly common.
I've said it before, eBooks are too expensive. Why should a paperbook and the eBook version both cost $7.99? It really bugs me. I don't blame Apple or Amazon but I wish something could be done about the price.
Quote from: Rico on April 11, 2012, 08:31:03 AM
I've said it before, eBooks are too expensive. Why should a paperbook and the eBook version both cost $7.99? It really bugs me. I don't blame Apple or Amazon but I wish something could be done about the price.
Well, actually you could partly blame Apple and the publishers, there was an effort to try an marginalize Amazon a bit back before the first iPad came out and an effort was made to keep e-book prices inflated. It's such a small part of Apple's business, it's not financially material but this could open the door for lower prices on e-books.
Some authors are moving away from publishers completely now and I am truly hoping this trend takes out some of the middlemen and cost and they can offer their books to the public cheaper in the near future.
Quote from: Rico on April 11, 2012, 08:40:19 AM
Some authors are moving away from publishers completely now and I am truly hoping this trend takes out some of the middlemen and cost and they can offer their books to the public cheaper in the near future.
yeah, i agree, that is likely a more realistic future distribution model.
$7.99? I gotta complain about the $20+ books in e-book form, those are a bit outrageous imo.
But yeah, this won't change anything. Its up to the book writers to quit using publishers and that seems to be the trend.
King