Posts tagged Amazon

Waterstones deal with Amazon puts Kindle and ebooks instore

Zoe Wood, The Guardian:

Waterstones said it was planning a digital revolution in its stores, with Kindle ereaders on sale for the first time and free wifi, so customers can choose between buying a physical book or downloading it then and there.

This deal is being met with increduility by many in the media, but I think this is a pretty sensible move by Waterstones. I know that I enjoy wandering around Waterstones and browsing through the physical books. I find books that way that I don’t find any other way. But more often than not, having found a book that I want, I then look it up on my iPhone/iPad and download it as an eBook.

If I’m reading this correctly, this deal would seem to imply that when that happens, Waterstones will get a percentage of the sale. So whereas before they got nothing when people like me bought eBooks whilst browsing their physical shelves, now when that happens they will get paid.

They might not get paid a lot, but the last time I checked not a lot is still more than nothing.

The future of eBooks: DRM free?

Charlie Stross:

It doesn’t matter whether Macmillan wins the price-fixing lawsuit bought by the Department of Justice. The point is, the big six publishers’ Plan B for fighting the emerging Amazon monopsony has failed (insofar as it has been painted as a price-fixing ring, whether or not it was one in fact). This means that they need a Plan C. And the only viable Plan C, for breaking Amazon’s death-grip on the consumers, is to break DRM.

If the major publishers switch to selling ebooks without DRM, then they can enable customers to buy books from a variety of outlets and move away from the walled garden of the Kindle store. They see DRM as a defense against piracy, but piracy is a much less immediate threat than a gigantic multinational with revenue of $48 Billion in 2011 (more than the entire global publishing industry) that has expressed its intention to “disrupt” them, and whose chief executive said recently “even well-meaning gatekeepers slow innovation” (where “innovation” is code-speak for “opportunities for me to turn a profit”).

DRM - for those of you who aren’t aware - stands for Digital Rights Management and is essentially a security lock on every book that you buy from Amazon (or Apple) that means that it is locked to you as a user and the eReading device you have. It is what prevents you sharing or giving the book to anyone else. The eBook files are secure and will only work with your username and password on the device (whether Kindle or iOS) you use. It also means that, if you buy a book from Amazon, it won’t work anywhere except on a Kindle or inside a Kindle app. Likewise if you buy a book from Apple; it’ll only work within iBooks.

The publishers demand for DRM on their books has, inadvertently, ended up giving Amazon even more power. If the publishers were to remove DRM from their books then it would break one area of control that Amazon has. It would mean that users would no longer be tied to any particular device; users would simply own the digital version of the book and be free to use it on any device they choose. And they would be able to purchase those DRM free books from a much wider array of sources; it wouldn’t have to be via the Amazon Store.

Update

John Gruber has added a response to the original article:

I think he’s right, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. DRM is a religion for old-school media executives. Rational thought could, but won’t, lead them to this solution because they’re starting with an unshakable irrational bedrock assumption: that there can exist a technical solution to defeat piracy. Their belief in DRM is a matter of faith, not logic.

If I’m wrong though, and the publishers see the light of day and start selling DRM-free ePub books, I think that’d be a win for Apple, in the same way that dropping DRM from music has helped, not hurt, Apple’s music business. Amazon is the one whose Kindle devices and apps do not support DRM-free ePub books.

The Justice Department just made Jeff Bezos dictator-for-Life

Jordan Weissmann in The Atlantic:

By shackling publishers, the Justice Department is only ensuring one half of a free market. It’s hard to imagine that bodes well for anyone long term, even if it means low prices today. 

It’s seems the real consensus is that the only winner from the US Government suing Apple and the big five publishers is Amazon. Who knew a government would go so far out of its way to aid a company who already holds a monopoly.

Apple finally speaks up about accusations of collusion with publishers

Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr:

The DOJ’s accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true. The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. Since then customers have benefited from eBooks that are more interactive and engaging. Just as we’ve allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore.

US government is ensuring Amazon have an even stronger monopoly over books

David Steitfeld in the New York Times:

As soon as the Department of Justice announced Wednesday that it was suing five major publishers and Apple on price-fixing charges, and simultaneously settling with three of them, Amazon announced plans to push down prices on e-books. The price of some major titles could fall to $9.99 or less from $14.99, saving voracious readers a bundle.

But publishers and booksellers argue that any victory for consumers will be short-lived, and that the ultimate effect of the antitrust suit will be to exchange a perceived monopoly for a real one. Amazon, already the dominant force in the industry, will hold all the cards.

This is my concern. In the short-term, the DoJ’s suing of Apple and five major publishers is a win for both Amazon and consumers. Amazon are free to charge whatever they want, and consumers will pay less for books as a result. But the long-term outcome of this is that all the power will end up in Amazon’s hands. And that puts them in a position to manipulate and bully. Which, interestingly, has already started to happen with a growing number of independent publishers complaining about how Amazon has been treating them.

So whilst the behaviour of Apple and the big five publishers may have been wrong, the problem with the route the DoJ is taking is that it plays completely into the hands of Amazon and only serves to increase the power and influence of the company which already has the most power and influence.

In other words, the DoJ, by suing Apple et al for anti-competitive behaviour, is going to make the industry far less competitive, not more. And that won’t be good for us consumers further down the line.

U.S. Sues Apple, Publishers Over E-Book Pricing

Chad Bray and Brent Kendall reporting for the Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. filed an antitrust lawsuit Wednesday against Apple Inc. AAPL +0.89% and five of the nation’s largest publishers, alleging they conspired to limit competition for the pricing of e-books.

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, alleges Apple and the publishers reached an agreement where retail price competition would cease, retail e-books prices would increase significantly and Apple would be guarantee a 30% “commission” on each e-book sold.

I’m somewhat torn over this. I want books to be as cheap as possible and yet I also want a sustainable publishing industry.

Also, it seems somewhat ironic that the one company with a real monopoly when it comes to books and ebooks - Amazon - is not being looked into at all. Amazon’s power meant that it was able to keep forcing prices lower and lower and this deal the publishers made with Apple was their way of regaining some control.

The truth is that neither position is ideal. The publishers shouldn’t be able to remove all pricing power from retailers but, at the same time, neither should Amazon be able to force the value of books lower and lower and eventually completely undermine the book publishing industry.

Amazon trying to rewrite the rules of publishing

This is an interesting article that doesn’t put Amazon in a very good light. It’s both a fascinating and uncertain time for books and publishing and Amazon’s tactics - and their fast approaching monopoly - should be something that makes all book lovers nervous. Amazon don’t seem to have had much close, investigative reporting done by the media, and very little negative reporting at all. They’re still somewhat of a media darling. But I for one hope that they don’t get a free, unchallenged waltz into a position of monopoly status when it comes to books. We need there to be healthy competition.

Amazon Kindle Fire vs. iPad 2

If you’re deciding between a Kindle Fire and an iPad, make sure you view this comparison chart and not just the (very selective) Amazon version.

Amazon gave zero thought to kids using the Kindle Fire

Mitch Lipka:

St. Louis area software engineer Lance Durham says he decided to get a couple of Kindle Fires to give as presents to his children. He was loading some games before wrapping them and realized he couldn’t turn off the single-click ordering, which charges his credit card.

“There was no password or pin, nor any kind of confirmation - the purchase immediately went through,” he says.

So Durham called Amazon and says he was told the ordering from Amazon could not be disabled, and the company suggested he “deregister” the device after every purchase. That, he says, caused the downloaded apps to stop working.

He returned the tablets.

I can’t believe that they didn’t think kids would be playing around with these devices and have nothing in place to stop them buying endless apps! Still, it should be a pretty quick software update they can roll out you’d hope.

Android's app platform soon to be more closed than Apple's?

Marco Arment:

By putting your app in the Amazon Appstore, you’re giving up a lot more control than Apple asks of us [iOS developers]: you’re giving up the ability to set your own price and control your app’s description, among many other restrictions. By comparison, it makes Apple look almost… open.

One of the biggest draws to the Android platform, the “open” Android Market, has just been sidestepped and made largely irrelevant for tablets. If the Fire sells anywhere near its target volumes, Amazon has hijacked the Android app retail channel for the long term: most sales of Android tablet software will be through the Amazon Appstore, and if your app isn’t there, it’s effectively invisible to the Android tablet user base.

Marco Arment is the creator of Instapaper, a hugely popular app for iPhone and iPad (though it also works on Kindle’s). He definitely makes some very interesting observations. If Amazon’s tablet is a huge hit, then any other Android tablet is probably as good as dead. And what if, as rumoured, Amazon come about with a phone soon too?

This is definitely an interesting scenario Google finds itself in with its Android platform. The more successful Amazon is with a forked version of Android, the less control Google has over it’s own thing.

Kindle Fire review

Joshua Topolsky at The Verge reviews the new Kindle Fire tablet by Amazon:

If you’re thinking about getting the Fire, you have to decide not just whether you want a tablet, but what kind of tablet you want. This isn’t an iPad-killer. It has the potential to do lots of things, but there are many things I have yet to see it do, and I wonder if it will get there given the lean software support. It’s my impression that Amazon believes that the Fire will be so popular that developers will choose to work on its platform rather than on Google’s main trunk of Android, but that’s just a theory right now.

Still, there’s no question that the Fire is a really terrific tablet for its price. The amount of content you have access to — and the ease of getting to that content — is notable to say the least. The device is decently designed, and the software — while lacking some polish — is still excellent compared to pretty much anything in this range (and that includes the Nook Color). It’s a well thought out tablet that can only get better as the company refines the software. It’s not perfect, but it’s a great start, and at $200, that may be all Amazon needs this holiday shopping season.

If I was to summarise Joshua’s review it would be with the word ‘ok’. And that may be enough for many.

How disruptive will the Kindle Fire really be?

Horace Dediu at Asymco:

The margins for Kindle content are thin. Very thin. Apple runs its content business at break even though it transacts billions of items per month. The amount of content that needs to pass through the Kindle ecosystem (with lower prices than Apple charges) will need to be astronomical to make it profitable on the shortened cycle time the iPhone enjoys. Thus the Kindle is likely to languish in a leisurely update cycle with users encouraged to hang on to their devices for years.

This a great piece that’s well worth reading in full. So many relevant points about the viability of the new Kindle Fire as being truly disruptive at the low end of the tablet market.