Connecticut’s Attorney General Richard Blumenthal seems to think that Apple and Amazon may be enjoying an unfair advantage in the e-book market and has accused the two companies of price fixing.
Blumenthal has requested meetings with the tech giants in an effort to discuss the deals they have with massive e-book publishers Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins and Penguin.
The AG says both companies have deals with the publishers that promise them the best e-book prices over any competition.
Such “most favored nation” clauses blocks the publishers from offering discounts deeper than what Apple or Amazon receives. While the deals are not illegal under current antitrust laws, they certainly fall into a gray area.
“The concerns are compounded, and hence potentially more troublesome, since this arrangement appears to be something that will be agreed to by the largest e-book publishers in the United States and two competitors who combined will likely command the greatest retail e-book share,” Blumenthal added, via CNNMoney.
Result for: schuster
In August, the World Trade Organization (WTO) decided in favor of the United States in a dispute over the sale of American films, books and music in China.
Today, China has appealed the decision, however the documents are not public as of yet.
The ruling had pitted China against the US, over China’s internal decision to force American products to be routed through state-owned companies. Over the past decade China has limited the amount of foreign products that enter the Chinese market, while at the same time exporting the most goods and creating a gigantic surplus.
The August decision was almost completely in favor of the US and its complaining parties, Warner Bros., Disney, Paramount, Universal, 20th Century Fox, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, McGraw Hill and Simon & Schuster.
The WTO agreed rules were being broken, but did not agree with the US on the argument that the censorship was slowing sales in the nation.
The appellate ruling is not expected until January.
Result for: schuster
Amazon has announced that it will be making 5,000 more books available for its popular e-reader device Kindle, adding to the already 120,000 downloadable titles available.
The new titles are available thanks to a recent deal struck by Amazon and the large book publisher Simon & Schuster.
At last week’s BookExpo America convention, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos continued to praise the Kindle and the benefits of electronic books. “That’s one of the great things about electronic books. They don’t go out of stock.” His statement came in response to the recently sold out title “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.” People want it, but it is sold out everywhere.
The Kindle was launched last November and now accounts for over 6 percent of the site’s total book sales. Amazon says it expects that number to increase significantly over the next few years.
