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Amazon Accused of Anti-Trust Violations "Tied" to Print-On-Demand TermsAmazon's March announcement that POD publishers would be required to use Amazon's own POD service BookSurge in order to sell books directly on Amazon's site predictably rubbed quite a few folks the wrong way. (Technically speaking, publishers can use alternative POD providers, but must then provide Amazon with an inventory of at least five books, and the ability to offer many titles for sale without tying up capital in inventory is one of the appeals of a POD model.) Now comes word that one of those POD publishers, Bangor, Maine-based BookLocker, has filed a class-action lawsuit against Amazon, alleging violations of the "tying" provisions of the Sherman Act -- in short, that Amazon has improperly predicated sales on use of printing services. From the complaint (PDF):
The acrimony between publishers and Amazon is seemingly growing by the day, and this is hardly a surprising development. But it's also another sign that Amazon may be drifting toward damaging the very ecosystem it depends on for survival.
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Comments: 2
Ben [20 May 2008 01:36 PM]
I don't blame the POD guys! I've used Lulu printing for business and they've been amazing...I wouldn't want anything to hamper their success!
Michael R. Bernstein [21 May 2008 07:56 PM]
"But it's also another sign that Amazon may be drifting toward damaging the very ecosystem it depends on for survival."
Hmm. I'm not so sure about the 'survival' part.
Although their *brand* is very strongly associated with bookselling, I wonder how much of Amazon's revenue still comes from books these days?