An essay in the February issue of Harper’s Magazine, “Killing the Competition: How the new monopolies are destroying open markets,†by Barry C. Lynn, includes Amazon in a growing list of American corporations that are pushing “monopolization of our private markets.†Included are Apple, Google, Intel, and Pixar (which together colluded to prevent employees from getting jobs at other firms), the Brazilian food giant JPS (which sets chicken prices throughout the South), the advertising giant WPP (one of four large advertising holding companies), and Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors (which together control 90 percent of domestic beer distribution).
Lynn writes that many in the book business fear Amazon in the same way as “the chicken farmers of the Sweedlin Valley†fear JPS.
An anonymous insider at one of New York’s big six publishers thinks so. According to a letter posted on pandodaily, and headlined a “confession,†the biggest issue is not that Amazon has made publishing margins razor-thin, it’s that Amazon is now attempting to publish the bestsellers that “cover our fixed costs†itself.
As both a reader and a book collector, I’m a big fan of college library book sales. Held annually or bi-annually at colleges and universities across the country, these sales convert library discards and unwanted donations into desperately needed funds. Uncluttered by the kinds of books that glut public library sales, the college library book sale paints an interesting picture of town-gown reading habits.
We’ve been talking about the Golan case, and its possible impact on culture, for years. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s the third in a line of cases, starting with the Eldred case, to challenge aspects of copyright law as violating the First Amendment. The key point in the case was questioning whether or not the US could take works out of the public domain and put them under copyright. The US had argued it needed to do this under a trade agreement to make other countries respect our copyrights. Of course, for those who were making use of those public domain works, it sure seemed like a way to unfairly lock up works that belonged to the public. It was difficult to see how retroactively taking works out of the public domain could fit into the traditional contours of copyright law… but today… that’s exactly what happened (pdf).
Spreading ideas just got easier. Today TED announces DVD On Demand, which allows users to create custom TEDTalk DVDs from a library of over 700 available talks. Each disc holds up to six talks, each with the option to order with subtitles in up to 32 languages. DVDs, available for $9.99, can be shipped to and watched in any region of the world.
“By putting our TEDTalks online for free, we’ve helped spread ideas to over half a billion viewers,†said June Cohen, Executive Producer of TED Media. “But not everyone has access to the internet, nor are they necessarily tech-savvy enough to stream talks when they do. There are times when you need to watch talks off-line. And our DVDs – think of them as ‘mix tapes’ of talks – are a simple alternative: inexpensive, highly personalized and easy to play on any DVD player.â€
