Europe confirms raids on ebook publishers
Antitrust and cartel concerns
The European Commission has confirmed it raided several companies involved in ebook publishing.
The regulators said it carried out "unannounced inspections" at ebook publishing companies in several member states because it has reason to believe they may have "violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and other restrictive practices".
European officials were accompanied by local competition regulators. The UK's Office of Fair Trading started investigating ebook pricing last month.
The Commission said the raids were just a first step and not necessarily evidence of guilt.
It said there was no deadline for the investigation. The length of the probe depends on complexity of the case and the cooperation of all the parties involved.
Many observers expected the arrival in Europe of Amazon's Kindle, and therefore increasing electronic sales, to result in falling prices for ebooks.
But the big publishing houses successfully stood up to Amazon last year to force an "agency-pricing" model on electronic distribution of books.
This model is broadly similar to the Net Book Agreement; publishers set prices for a set number of books. The NBA was killed off by the Office of Fair Trading. ®
COMMENTS
Must be a retard then
As have a Kindle.
Never paid for a book on it though, and haven't stopped using it since I bought it. I'm pretty impressed with it to be honest.
Am I still a retard? I bought a subsidised piece of hardware that does exactly what I want, and hasn't cost me a penny to use (well, maybe a few pence in charging).
Locked in Ecosystem? You can read whatever you like on it - doesn't have to come from Amazon. In what way is that locked in? Please explain. Or don't you know, and are only regurgitating what you read on slashdot?
I see your Fail and raise you an Ignoramus.
Well, disregard my academic record and well paid job, I must be a dunce for having a Kindle, despite the fact that it doesn't 'lock you into' Amazon's ecosystem, since it will quite happily reproduce e-books bought in ohter formats and display PDFs and MS Word documents emailed to it for free.
But of course, not being a Kindle owner, this perfectly qualifies you to criticise something you obviously know very little about, right?
those who do not learn from history, and all that
So the publishers collude to artificially inflate the price of a digital product as it begins to gain ground over it's physical predecessor.
Can't imagine how even vaguely tech savvy flexibly moralled users will react?
Not saying it's right or wrong. Just predictable.
I'm a retard
Well, I'm beginning to think so, I got a kindle with the "free" 3g for £149.99 and got a couple of ebooks for quite good prices at the beginning (like a drug addict maybe?)
Just looking today on Amazon for some Holiday reading material and I looked at Clarksons latest rambles:
Kindle Edition - £12.98
Hardcover - £9.99
Paperback - £5.99
Used - £2.80
Kindle edition TWICE as much as a paperback, £3.00 more than the hardback, and £10.00 more than a used one!
So yes, I do feel like a complete twat now for tying myself in to the Kindle!
Having said that it is a nice eBook reader, good wifi & 3g connectivity as well as it's ability to read web pages (with the obvious limitations)
@AC
You don't HAVE to buy ebooks from Amazon in order to read them on the Kindle. In fact, you don't have to BUY ebooks at all; there are plenty of (legit) free books available.
