http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of- ... on-1094410

Since the EU has them on the run with that 10% fine, why would it accept that 2 year deal when it could just impose itself? And does the circus start up again after 2 years? I could see Apple persisting alongside the publishers you know

Can't believe I'm saying this, but...... vive la EU.
This price fixing should be punished and banned!

Strange then they're not going after the one ebook publisher whose publishing system specifically allows it, rather than the authors of the content, to set the price of the ebooks they publish.

Jon

There have been instances of price fixing working in out favour - the net book price agreement for instance.

define 'our'. It certainly isn't better for the authors. It certainly isn't better for small bookshops, which have been closing in droves. It certainly isn't better for the eBooks market to have one player with a dominant market share... It means consumers get some ebooks cheaper but other eBooks cost more than the authors want to sell them for. The only party who it is always working in favour of in Amazon.

Jon

'Our' as is in us, the consumer.
The NBA protected a race to the bottom, where suddenly the likes of Tesco can offer a novel at £1.99 or free with a bag of grapes, while the independent book store get's stuck with a £4.99 price tag.
It also meant that the more specialist material (like tech manuals) cost no more than a more popular hard back.
These days, your 50 Shades books can be cheaper than a magazine but a decent book about photography will set you back over £20.

And yes, independents are still closing in markets with a protected price, the NBA wasn't a panacea, and we do have to take into account the internet's affect on shopping habits after all.

I agree with you about the NBA, but I'm not even sure the current situation is any more in our interests in the long term. In terms of purely digital data of course 'availability' is a bit of a vacuous issue but in terms of actual paper books, if we allow the people who are loss-leading the mass popular titles (Amazon and the supermarkets, basically) to control the majority of the market, then availability of 'paper' versions of less mainstream titles will fail and we'll be left with only the digital channel to obtain them. The digital channel which is largely controlled by... Amazon.

I don't know if the current regulatory path will hurt the big publishers and Apple or not (I suspect it will but it's not done yet so...) but I do not including Amazon under the same scrutiny, when they already control a large portion of both the digital and paper book markets, seems a very odd thing.

Apples deal with the publisher's meant that the price was fixed at a certain rate as they entered a deal whereby the books could not be sold at a lower rate elsewhere. Eg an illegal cartel and thus uncompetitive also harming the consumer by forcing them to pay more for a book that they would otherwise have done.

Can't remember their name now, used to be Bargain Books... anyway, I was able to get the same enormous hardback book delivered to my house for cheaper through their eBay store than walking in and buying it. And I can tell you, where they are renting ain't cheap...

I only use Amazon for older/difficult to obtain books really, there's usually somewhere else doing what I want for a few £ cheaper these days.