Orwell chap snaps in Amazon paperback claptrap yap rap

Amazon is under fire from George Orwell's estate for referencing the Nineteen Eighty-Four author in its legal battle with publishers. The web bazaar, while mired in a war of words with Hachette over book prices, invoked Orwell's name and cited comments made by the author at the dawn of paperback books. According to Amazon, …

[Destroy All Monsters]

deleted the titles

Did you mean "undownloaded"?

[Destroy All Monsters]

What I don't understand is that amazon seems to roll out Good Blair (in opposition to Bad Blair) to explain the stance of its opponents in this legal opera buffa. Or am I completely confused?

[John Savard]

Lower Prices

It certainly will be a good thing when natural market forces lead to a lower price for e-books.

However, for Amazon to object to traditional publishers colluding to resist its demands to sell their product to it at a price it decrees, even if it has the antitrust law on its side, to me seems morally suspect, as it is using its own massive market power to get publishers to capitulate.

The proper function of antitrust law is to eliminate the role of market power in the playing field. If Amazon can impose terms on publishers, it should be broken up into five competing companies or something like that.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Lower Prices

That sounds suspiciously like "antitrust should be used in ways I approve of".

The publishers seems to be unable to get their act together? Let them fester.

[Daniel Johnson]

Re: Lower Prices

Hatchette's revenues were up 5% this quarter. Jeff Bezos hoped that the Kindle would take over the book market -- it's in the name of the product and the original instructions to the designers: "act like you're putting every publisher and bookseller out of business". In reality, Kindle has a little under 20% of the US market. Amazon want to force the publishers to lower the price of eBooks so they can compete more effectively with paper versions of the same book.

Meanwhile, Amazon has opened another front with Disney -- they want Disney to subsidize Amazon's loses when Amazon decide to sell their DVDs below cost. Since Disney own the classic Disney characters, the Muppets, Marvel, Indiana Jones, and the daddy of them all, Star Wars, I think Amazon may be punching a bit above their weight this time.

[Anonymous Coward]

A novel approach

The other day upon the chair

I saw a book that wasn't there

It wasn't there again today

It must've been downloaded from the USA

[Christopher Blackmore]

Nobody at Amazon understands English.

If anyone at Amazon had reading comprehension skills better than a five year old, they would have understood that Orwell was saying that paperbacks were such a great idea that he was surprised the hardback publishers didn't try to get them banned.