Comments on: Amazon Subject of Antitrust Suit

By: Mary

Mary — Sat, 24 May 2008 04:37:11 +0000

Considering that I just received a $95 check from my state’s Microsoft lawsuit, I’m very interested in this one. *grins* Might help out the smaller publishers.

By: veinglory

veinglory — Fri, 23 May 2008 22:41:27 +0000

I’m pretty skeptical, but good luck to them.

By: Denton Lawyer

Denton Lawyer — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:54:20 +0000

I’m going to have to read the entire suit before I could make a judgement call. There are a lot of elements of an anti-trust case that must be present in order for it to be viable.

You’re right Jane. This will be an interesting case.

By: Jane

Jane — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:07:03 +0000

I’d like to read the petition. I think the problem is the conditioned purchase. The 1992 Kodak Eastman case is considered one of the more important modern decisions on tying. Kodak would not sell replacement parts for its copying equipment. If you wanted to get your copying machine serviced, you had to hire Kodak. Private firms could not compete because they couldn’t get the parts. Kodak owned or controlled almost the entire parts market for its copier. Because Kodak service was the only game in town, it could charge higher prices – no competition.

With the Amazon case, you certainly have a bundling or a tying but Amazon doesn’t control 100 percent of the retail end of the book market. I haven’t done a ton of research on this so I don’t know what the case law has been since ‘92 and admittedly, I haven’t studied anti-trust since law school. I only know what the big cases are because that was what was taught.

By: Shiloh Walker

Shiloh Walker — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:48:23 +0000

I’m curious what your take is on this, Jane. You think those filing the suit have a leg to stand on?

Personally, I do but I don’t know law and Amazon irritates me anyway so maybe that’s playing into my opinion.