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back to article Conn. lawman grills Apple and Amazon over e-book pricing

Connecticut's top law enforcement official said he is investigating whether agreements Apple and Amazon.com have reached with e-book publishers violate antitrust laws by freezing competitors out of the market. In letters to the general counsels of Apple and Amazon, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said he was concerned …

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  1. JonHendry
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    And he's running for Senate this year

    He might want to think again about pissing off Apple and Amazon's customers.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Huh?

      Why would it piss off their customers that they couldn't fix ebook prices higher than they should be, because they have a monopoly? Surely their customers would prefer what blokey is proposing?

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  2. Tim 64
    WTF?

    Just one question

    How are Apple and Amazom pricing different from a book store? Unless a book is marked for clearance you almost always pay the price printed on the spine by the publisher and that is the same no matter what book store you visit. While E-books don't have to physically be printed or shipped I suspect that publishers pricing models for E-books is similar to that for physical books so naturally E-book sellers charge the 'Suggested Retail Price'.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Pint

      Hmmm

      Just one problem with that premise - It's completely and utterly untrue and not based in fact. Take this statement -

      "Unless a book is marked for clearance you almost always pay the price printed on the spine by the publisher and that is the same no matter what book store you visit"

      Book prices vary wildly, and are often under the manufacturer's suggested retail price. As an obvious example, think of the launch of any recent blockbuster, eg Harry Potter, Dan Brown etc, all the shops compete to offer it at the cheapest price possible, a race often won by the supermarkets or big chains. These books aren't "marked for clearance", they're brand new.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      From my experience

      Quite a few bookstores offer deals on new releases as well - thus offering them on the popular titles.

      Usually they are in the form of

      "£x off"

      or

      "half-price".

      So by having this on ebooks they are deviating from the bookstore model.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I still don't quite understand...

    ....how a physical book - printed and bound, transported to store, using all the resources and man hours of a small army - can cost the same or LESS than an ebook.

    I'm finding this to MY cost after having purchased an ereader. And funnily with my old books I can pass them around when I'm done, something I cannot so with an ebook.

    And thusly, as ereaders become more popular the level of piracy will increase and sales will decline until the publishers die.

    Here's an idea - learn from the MPAA and RIAA and publish your OWN ebooks and if they are any good they will sell, meaning YOU get the money, if not there's a job going doing something else somewhere.......

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