Wish they would have done that. I have a strong preference for print books and physical bookstores, and I absolutely hate the thought of having less options, less places to buy, less choices because Amazon was given too much market power by the government with my own tax dollars. I am absolutely terrified of losing Barnes & Noble and I hate that only e-book consumers have been considered rather than the interests of all book consumers in general.

Stop drinking the Kindle kool-aid.

Of course they’re going to SAY they intend to lower prices in the future- promises you don’t intend to keep are a great way to keep selling Kindles!

But they know fully well that the proposed settlement has big legal loopholes and probably won’t make it past the judge as written. If it does, they can always find another bogeyman to pin the inevitable price hike on.

Selling ebooks at a loss costs Amazon money, can you really argue otherwise? Any opposition from them is half-hearted at best.

I think you’re glossing over a major issue.

If you want to accuse the publishers of collusion to raise prices, fine. $12-$14 for an ebook seems high. It would be entirely reasonable for the DoJ to ask the PUBLISHERS (who are settling) to lower ebook prices, and possibly pay a fine, both of which they can totally do under the current contracts!

But that isn’t what is happening.

The publisher’s are being “punished” by agreeing to cancel their current contracts, industrywide, and replace them with new contracts that remove a standard clauses EVERYONE ELSE who sells an ebook (including Kindle Direct self-publishing authors) is required to sign. They are then free to resume jacking up the price of ebooks, only they will probably go even higher because they know Amazon will subsidize prices back down for their own customers, (never mind that it will raise prices for everyone else.

The settlement doesn’t even attempt to address ebook price fixing.

The DoJ needs to go back to the drawing board and come up with something that punishes the people they are actually accusing of wrong-doing.

“The bottom line here is collusion is collusion and the greed factor for a virtual product that doesnt relate to the production cost of said virtual item was manipulated and the players got caught period.”

– Actually producers under the Agency plan made less per unit — something they gave up to gain control of the product. The manipulation of the price happened at Amazon, where the price was artificially low.

“Apple lured them into a situation that they more than likely wouldnt have gotten themselves into if it werent for apples desire to supplant Amazon marketshare.”

— If Apple lured them in as you say, where is the collusion? Collusion implies that all parties participate in a price fix. Publisher’s were more scared of product devaluation at Amazon, and a huge cut in margin whenever Amazon squeezed them to make the wholesale price 4.99, so they could take a 50% cut of the 9.99 price they invented to promote Kindle.

“In the end Amazon priced ebooks at logical levels that their customers indicated they would pay for. ”
– That’s not market demand establishing price, that’s a monopoly setting the price.

“The publishers didnt like that price point and thought to control it in an anti-competitive way.” — By gaining control of the price, publisher’s were able to ensure that prices were uniform across all dealers. This permitted competition between dealers to be fair, considering that in at least two situations and 70% of the market share was dictated BY THE TYPE OF DEVICE.

“Busted is busted and it is good to see that the consumer is still a part of the product price point.” — Hunh? The consumer dictates a book purchase between books, and rising demand doesn’t affect the price very much at all. The e-book selling for 12.99 at around 15,000 units per year cost the same as an e-book selling for 12.99 at around 150,000 units per year.

Given that so many free downloads and 99 cent titles sit unread on devices (this is in recent reportage) its hard to argue that price determines demand here.

Apple lured them into a situation that they more than likely wouldnt have gotten themselves into if it werent for apples desire to supplant Amazon marketshare.

In the end Amazon priced ebooks at logical levels that their customers indicated they would pay for. The publishers didnt like that price point and thought to control it in an anti-competitive way. Busted is busted and it is good to see that the consumer is still a part of the product price point.

Get used to it publishers. The music industry can teach you many lessons on what NOT to do.