“Here is my major problem with the situation—their insistence on dictating to us, and everyone else, these new terms over the phone in a high-pressure manner. The fact that they were unwilling to put anything in writing seem to me to suggest that, at a minimum, they knew what they were doing was questionable. Moreover, we are not Amazon’s customers. Lightning Source is their customer. That is who they have the relationship with to distribute our books. They stepped over that business relationship to pit us against Lightning Source. I consider that unethical.” – Post from Booklocker co-owner Richard Hoy to pod_publishers list.
Details: That’s me, not the BL guy, alluding to the Standard Oil comparison made in the TeleBlog post headlined Of oil lamps, Print on Demand, and e-book machines. Furthermore, I’ll not accuse Amazon of violating restraint of trade laws, Rockefeller fashion, or of any other crimes. That’s for lawyers to determine. But in the ethics department, Jeff Bezos is getting deeper and deeper into Standard territory.
In fairness to Amazon: The arm-twisting, while deplorable, might be limited in reach at this point. So far the real pressure seems to be against subsidy-book publishers, according to a list post by Pete Masterson, a publishing expert—as opposed to single book publishers or smaller publishers. True? And what about larger publishers? Comments welcome.
