19 Responses so far

1. 1. king rat on Jan 31st, 2010 at 6:31 pm

   If it were aquarium pumps, the manufacturer would not have a monopoly. But books are a whole different beast because of copyright.

2. 2. Misterecho on Jan 31st, 2010 at 6:40 pm

   Amazon seem to be disconnected from reality. Perhaps a well connected right hook will realign their perspective.

3. 3. Robert Fleck on Jan 31st, 2010 at 6:42 pm

   King Rat, there are numerous parts in every aquarium pump that are subject to trademark and patent restrictions, so by Amazon’s logic, every manufacturer has a monopoly over their particular aquarium pumps. You have to come to an arrangement with the manufacturer in order to sell their product. But there are other manufacturers of products with significantly similar function, so in the marketplace, it is not a monopoly. Just like with books.

   Amazon clearly felt the sting of the use of monopoly, however, as price fixing is among the categories of monopolistic behavior that can get the federal government to come inspect your business with all the gentleness of a colonoscopy without anesthetic.

4. 4. CharlesP on Jan 31st, 2010 at 6:45 pm

   I found that choice of words a bit… amusing as well. I’m really curious as to how high a level of approval that response got to (it seems like one that got written by a division head/team instead of corporate communications department). Merlin Mann had an interesting point in the Macbreak Weekly coverage of the iPad in that you have to assume the Kindle hardware division has some goals at odds with the Kindle book selling division re: a new device to possibly sell books for. I think the take away here is mainly that Amazon isn’t going to “stop carrying” Macmillan books as much as it was a temporary situation brought about by the pissing match of two big companies (they both need each other).

5. 5. Rick Boatright on Jan 31st, 2010 at 7:23 pm

   But there’s no such thing as an “equivalent book”

   You can’t say “Well, I want to read the latest Stephanie Plum book, but since I can’t get it, I’ll get an Dick Francis book instead.”

   It just doesn’t work. It’s price fixing in a monopolistic way. Unlike aquarium pumps, there no effective substitute.

   Rick

6. 6. Sean Melican on Jan 31st, 2010 at 7:35 pm

   Parker Brothers has a monopoly on ‘Monopoly’. I see a lawsuit against Amazon.

7. 7. King Rat on Jan 31st, 2010 at 7:38 pm

   Robert,

   This is true, but not entirely relevant. Not completely irrelevant either. Aquarium pumps are pretty fungible. If there’s a patent on part of an aquarium pump, there’s a pump that can be used instead. Or will be in 17 years when the patent expires. A Buckell book is very fungible for some folks. They’ll switch to another author in a heartbeat because the entertainment value is replaceable for them. For true fans (or those who read the first two books of the series and want to know how it ends in Sly Mongoose, dang you Tor for not having the MMPB out yet!), it’s not as fungible. Where an individual book’s fungibility lies in relation to other products I couldn’t tell you. The book won’t be completely fungible for another 75 years, at least. Probably 125 years assuming that Buckell doesn’t kick the bucket tonight. Copyright, and books, are a whole different beast. It’s enough different that talking about a monopoly isn’t completely stupid.

8. 8. David Barr Kirtley on Jan 31st, 2010 at 7:51 pm

   Dave Kirtley has a monopoly on Dave Kirtley’s sparkling wit, the bastard!

9. 9. Robert Cruze Jr. on Jan 31st, 2010 at 8:16 pm

   Pigs have a monopoly on bacon — but John Scalzi has a monopoly on bacon cats!

10. 10. Jon Freestone on Jan 31st, 2010 at 8:32 pm

    Chuck Norris has a monopoly of curing Cancer with his tears because he never cries.

11. 11. SMD on Jan 31st, 2010 at 9:22 pm

    Nihilistic corporations have a monopoly on nihilism? Does that count?

    Or: chimpanzees have a monopoly on poop throwing…the first word could very well be replaced by “Amazon,” if you’re so inclined.

    But I’m not very funny tonight…

12. 12. Rebecca Herman on Jan 31st, 2010 at 10:13 pm

    That pesky air, it has a monopoly on allowing us to breathe and cannot be tolerated!

13. 13. Emma on Jan 31st, 2010 at 11:59 pm

    What Amazon doesn’t seem to understand in this statement is that “monopoly” is a market term, not a manufacturing one. Macmillan is the only company that publishes certain books, but those books are available through any number of retail outlets. Macmillan may negotiate prices with sellers, but their power isn’t unlimited – and they have no control at all over resale. I can offer any Macmillan book I own for sale at any price I please on half.com or at a garage sale. The Kindle itself comes much closer to a monopoly, but even there I suppose there is a resale market. Very few companies have a pure monopoly, not even the electric company. (I’m just too lazy to live off-grid with my own windmill.)

    Amazon just sounds silly. “General Mills has a monopoly on their breakfast cereals – oh noes.” I suppose Post Grape-Nuts are an imperfect substitute for Honey-Nut Cheerios, but nevertheless there are other cereal choices out there.

    But books are more complicated than cereals or ebook readers, because a book is not just a Macmillan product, it’s a Tobias Bucknell product, too. Depending on whom an author has published with over the course of his or her career, the devoted consumer could very well be faced with a choice between a Baen product and a Macmillan one. Which is just to say reiterate that Amazon’s argument has nothing to do with real economics and everything to do with refusing to lose gracefully.

    Er, I meant to post something funny. Like, “The Pope has a monopoly on Catholic bishops.” But the longer I stare at Amazon’s statement, the less sense it makes.

14. 14. Samuel Tinianow on Feb 1st, 2010 at 1:21 am

    Jeff Bezos ever comes to Columbus, my foot will quickly have a large and painful monopoly on the inside of his ass.

15. 15. Adam Heine on Feb 1st, 2010 at 3:14 am

    “Saying someone has a monopoly of their own product is redundant and clumsy PR.”

    I thought it was spin, but it’s just semantics I guess.

    Speaking of which, my wife and I are working on a monopoly of children. Seriously, just try and find these kids somewhere else. You can’t do it.

16. 16. Sean Melican on Feb 1st, 2010 at 8:25 am

    If this has been considered elsewhere, I apologize for trying to break the monopoly. (There is a monopoly, of course, on concepts.) It seems that Amazon is being very short-sighted, wanting only to make money on the front end. But with e-book readers and e-books, there is an opportunity to bring back the backlist. Since physical books last only so long before they are pulped, the only way to make money on a backlist is to sell used copies through a third party, but this is limited by the number of sellers with books they are willing to get rid of. But with e-books… Suppose I come across a physical book of a writer I like with an extensive backlist. It is going to be expensive and difficult for me to obtain copies of those physical books. But if Amazon has them in an e-book format, then, since it costs next to nothing for storage, they could sell me those e-books for a very modest price. And if I don’t have a Kindle (or whatever) they can then sell that for, let’s say the cost of a hardback. I’d be willing to pay upfront for one hardback, plus a small price for the backlisted titles. And if they do it right, they could make MORE money on the backlist then on a single hardback by not only selling the author’s backlist, but books that other readers who bought them have bought (which Amazon already does). For a very modest price, I am not going to be nearly as picky in choosing which books to buy — I’ll buy a whole bunch and try them. Then I may have found a writer I would not have otherwise found, and buy his or her backlist, and so on.

17. 17. --E on Feb 1st, 2010 at 3:07 pm

    Rick@ #5: You can’t say “Well, I want to read the latest Stephanie Plum book, but since I can’t get it, I’ll get an Dick Francis book instead.”

    –>And yet millions of readers say that every single day. People go into bricks-and-mortar stores, can’t find the book they’re looking for and…

    Well, most of them don’t walk out empty-handed, is what I’m saying.

    If enough people say, “I don’t want to pay $14 for the newest Stephanie Plum novel,” you better believe the price will come down for the book. That’s exactly the model Macmillan is trying here.

    Publishers aren’t price-fixing. They’re refusing to let Amazon engage in price-fixing. Amazon has a monopoly on the Kindle. They are selling ebooks at a loss in order to sell more Kindles. Currently they hold 75% of the ebook-reader market. Imagine if they were allowed–by price-fixing at a loss–to grab even more of that market?

    They’re behaving like your average cable company. “Big discount for the first six months! Free subscription channels for a year!” I have little doubt that if allowed to go unchallenged, Amazon would bump up the ebook prices in a couple of years, if they had less fear that readers might go elsewhere.

18. 18. catfriend on Feb 2nd, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    Male sperm whales have a monopoly on sperm whale sperm.

19. 19. Eileen on Feb 3rd, 2010 at 3:26 pm

    Recursion has a monopoly on recursion.