(2012-04-12) Doj Sues Apple And Ebook Publishers

The Department Of Justice is suing Apple Computer and some EBook big Book Publishing players over Anti-Trust Framing of the agency-pricing model. Biggest winner won't be the readers, but rather Amazon. Mike Shatzkin has a summary.

Albert Wenger points out that if the Publishers hadn't demanded DRM, they would have avoided this market structure.

• Charlie Stross agrees and raises other issues about Amazon. By foolishly insisting on DRM, and then selling to Amazon on a wholesale basis, the publishers handed Amazon a Monopoly on their customers—and thereby empowered a predatory Monopsony.
• Apr24: Tom Doherty Associates, publishers of Tor, Forge, Orb, Starscape, and Tor Teen, today announced that by early July 2012, their entire list of e-books will be available DRM-free.
• Apr25: Charlie Stross gives more argument for why a publisher should drop DRM. He sees Book Store-s as potentially effective curators; I think curation has already gone online. I Commented to ask about the idea of publishers doing their own direct selling.