Thursday News: Writers in underwear; EU settles price fixing case with Apple and four pubs
Publishing NewsAgency pricing / digital lending / Hachette3 Comments
Pisarze w slipkach | Booklips.pl – A collection of male writers in their underwear (or possibly swimming trunks). It’s not what you may think (or maybe it is). Booklips.pl
Hachette to raise ebook prices for libraries by 220% – Hachette has followed in the footsteps of HarperCollins and RandomHouse by jacking up the cost of digital library books. In March, Random House increased the wholesale prices of the ebooks it offers to libraries by as much as 300 percent. Now Hachette, which only offers backlist ebooks (no new books) to libraries, is increasing its prices as well. It’s no wonder that libraries are looking to purchase indie books. Thanks Lynn Paid Content
EU settles with four publishers and Apple over price fixing – EU has announced that Hachette, Macmillan, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster along with Apple have agreed to stop price fixing. The terms of the agreement essentially follow the deal made with the DOJ. 1) Existing agency contracts with Apple will be terminated. 2) Apple will allow any other “major international ebook publisher” to terminate its agency agreement immediately. If the publishers take no action, Apple is to terminate the agreement. 3) The publishers will offer each retailer the option to terminate the agency agreement if the agreement restricts the retailer’s ability to change the price or if the agreement contains an MFN clause. If the retailer does not respond, the publisher must terminate the agreement. 4) For two years, the publishers agree to not restrict the pricing of ebooks by retailers. “However, as regards agency agreements, the aggregate value of the price discounts or promotions offered by any retailer should not exceed the aggregate amount equal to the total commissions the publisher pays to that retailer over a 12-month period in connection with the sale of its e-books to consumers.” This is a departure from the US deal because in the US deal, this is type of deal is permitted but not imposed. The language here suggests that it might be imposed. 5) No MFNs for five years. The settlement is now open for comments and it is unclear when and if the terms of the settlement will be imposed. Agreement in PDF here: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2012:283:0007:0009:EN:PDF Europa / Tech Crunch
The eBooks Case: A Canadian Perspective – Canada seems to be the only country right now that is suffering under Agency pricing by all the publishers now that the EU has come to an agreement some of the major publishers. According to reader Lynn tells me the following: ” there are two class certification cases relating to Competition Act claims (the Canadian version of the Antitrust law), Pro-sys v. Microsoft and Sun-Rype Products v. Archer Daniels Midland will be argued at the Supreme Court of Canada on October 17th. It will probably take a couple of months for the Supremes to deliver their judgment. We may then see some movement on the agency pricing issue here in Canada because the publishers will then have to start paying their lawyers to defend their actions.” More about the class action suit in Canada over price fixing at the link above. Thanks Lynn CANADIAN COMPETITION & REGULATORY LAW
@Jane: Just to clarify, the cases coming before the Supreme Court of Canada in October are not the lawsuits against the aganecy publishers which were filed in April 2012 in B. C., Ontario and Quebec. However, these cases deal with certification of class issues which are also issues in the cases against the agency publishers. If the Plaintiffs in these cases are ultimately successful in being allowed to pursue their claims, then it is likely that the plaintiffs in the cases against the publishers would also be allowed to proceed which would mean that the publishers would then have to defend the action on its merits rather than trying to get it dismissed on procedural grounds.
Of interest, I have noted that ebook prices have been steadily rising over the past couple of months in Canada for new releases (where the book is released in hardcover). I saw yesterday that they have listed the new Ken Follett ebook for $21.99 here which makes me wonder what’s going on (are the publishers trying to get evidence to prove that prices were cheaper under agency).
Maybe LynnD is right and publishers are trying to make new facts to fit their earlier point, that agency was better for readers but we were just too stupid to understand. And pricing to libraries to increase by 220%?
Publishers: Still crazy after all these years.
At this point, it looks to me like the Barry Diller + Scott Rudin + Atavist deal is potentially good for readers. At least they aren’t displaying the open contempt for the reading population that comes from the big 6.
I really admire Douglas County Libraries for taking a clear public stand against the big six practices around ebooks w/r/t libraries and for establishing alternate ebook resources for their users.