AAR encourages its members (Literary Agents) to write the DoJ in opposition of the settlement

[keriflur]

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/51877-aar-urges-mem...

Discuss. 

[patgolfneb]

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/response-to-doj-bizarre-misunderstanding-of-e-book-business-fro... I added a link to the letter referenced in the article. I am not sure that proof that there has been successful collusion, with established economic harm, is needed for DOJ to take action, which the letter assumes. The attempt to collude can be sufficient. There are other possible justifications for a finding a settlement be in the public interest, just as there are non price benefits to agency pricing. Despite this the letter does a good job of identifying concerns with the data DOJ, bases its case on and the weakness of its conclusions and its rather narrow definition of the public interest.

[roustabout]

Oh, the letter is a knee-slapper, alright.

First, imagine any of the quoted phrases coming from a gent wearing a  flamboyant hat and a lot of bling.  

"I write to you as the president of the AAR, the largest organization of literary and dramatic agents in the United States"

I write to you as the president of the largest organization of pimps in the United States...

"Our more than 475 members represent writers who number in the tens of thousands"

We have stables averaging more than 20 apiece!  

"We firmly oppose the proposed settlement"

On the grounds that it would likely make us amongst the first needing to find honest work.  

Amazon "threatened the existence of Barnes & Noble, the one remaining large chain store that sells books"

Our favorite motel chain, long known for its willingness to accept gratuities from our business associates -- please, whatever you do, don't remember the antitrust cases won by the independents against BN and our esteemed business associates.

"to make it impossible for other businesses to to enter the e-book marketplace in a way that made financial sense for them"

Make it impossible for traditionally structured large publishers to maintain their lavish outlays on, amongst others, us!

Amazon's 'low pricing unfairly threatened the world'  

Yes indeed, the world seemed poised on the brink of catastrophe just a few months ago - thinking back on it, Amazon's discount pricing enabled Iran to fund its nuclear development program and made mortgage-backed securities seem like a truly excellent idea.  

"It seems to us outrageous that the Department of Justice would choose to interfere in a functioning marketplace"

A functioning book marketplace has for centuries included a right of resale of used titles.  The ebook market has no such, and amongst many other nice things, the Apple price structure persuaded everyone to think of access to books like access to software with a revocable license, rather than ownership of a copy of an artistic work.  

"Of course we have no way of knowing if there was collusion among the publishers and Apple"

Here's a hint:  read the biography of Steve Jobs which was recently published, and either rephrase this or simply delete it from the letter.

Or leave it - it is laugh-out-loud funny. 

End of the day, I don't care if it cures cancer and preservers mom and apple pie against terrorists -- I am not an Apple customer and do not appreciate having Apple dictate the terms under which I do business. 

Marketing and the national bestseller phenomenon has made it much harder to find really good books. 

I can't imagine Gravity's Rainbow being published as a third novel today. 

[flyingtoastr Scribe]

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roustabout wrote:

End of the day, I don't care if it cures cancer and preservers mom and apple pie against terrorists -- I am not an Apple customer and do not appreciate having Apple dictate the terms under which I do business. 

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But you're a-ok with Amazon doing so?

[roustabout]

"But you're a-ok with Amazon doing so?"

Amazon, also, is pushing the ebooks-as-software model.  However, with the Apple/publisher collusion knocked off the table, I see the field as more open to new approaches - the consumer-funded subsidy of buggywhip manufacturers in the automotive era, to shift metaphors, is no longer as rigidly enforced. 

The field may not be more open to Random House and MacMillan, who have used the bestseller model developed in collaboration with national chains to build up a topheavy infrastructure that floods not just the market but reviewers and Publisher's Weekly with a noise level that's so high that signal's harder and harder to pick out. I think it definitely disrupts the current model which hasn't been working well for me for a long time, in either the DTB or ebook spaces, in terms of finding good things to read. 

I don't see the major publishers as gatekeepers of a canon but as industrial strength book dispensers.  The requirement for an industrial product in terms of predictability and thus uniformity is pretty high - and predictable, uniform writing isn't really what I'm after that much of the time. 

[keriflur]

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roustabout wrote:

Oh, the letter is a knee-slapper, alright.

First, imagine any of the quoted phrases coming from a gent wearing a  flamboyant hat and a lot of bling.  

"I write to you as the president of the AAR, the largest organization of literary and dramatic agents in the United States"

I write to you as the president of the largest organization of pimps in the United States...

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  LMAO.