> Hachette gets the ability to set the prices on its e-books, which was a major battleground in the dispute.
Extremely sad. In no other market do we let wholesalers dictate retail prices. Even MAPs don't actually force the sales, they just dictate advertising.
On the other hand, in no other market is there effectively only one retailer for a wholesaler's product.
(Yes there are plenty of other readers and ebook software options out there. They don't have the market penetration or mind share that Amazon/Kindle does - Amazon has an effective monopoly here as far as most consumers are concerned.)
In actuality, it is the publishers who have a monopoly on each book that they sell. If Amazon (or any other retailer) wants to sell Amy Poehler's new bestseller Yes Please, they can only buy it from HarperCollins. They can set any wholesale price they want, and no other publisher is allowed to offer a competing price for that book.
That's almost like saying Amy Poehler has a monopoly on her written words. If HarperCollins (or any other publisher) wants to publish her words in a book, they can only pay her for that privilege. She can agree to any terms she wants, and no other person is allowed to agree to a competing offer for those words.
But the point is that while publishers get to sell books through multiple retailers, Amy Poehler does not (in practice) get to license her words to multiple publishers.
This feels like an awful lot of qualifiers ("effective monopoly" "most consumers") to throw around when we're talking about a word that has a very specific definition.
Don't get me wrong, I have no love for either of these parties, they were fighting a battle over who got the right to screw the consumer. However, Amazon is far from a monopoly, even in the book/e-book market.
> On the other hand, in no other market is there effectively only one retailer for a wholesaler's product.
Steam for digital games is in the same position. And they're no better than amazon (forcing things on the sellers, usually about sales, and having terrible terms for buyers).
Extremely sad. In no other market do we let wholesalers dictate retail prices. Even MAPs don't actually force the sales, they just dictate advertising.