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 Monop Sony.
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.