Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Amazon For Blocking Out Other Print On Demand Providers

from the had-to-see-that-coming dept

Tue, May 20th 2008 1:02pm — Mike Masnick

Back in March, we wrote about Amazon's surprise decision to only sell print-on-demand books that were serviced through Amazon's own print-on-demand system. This upset an awful lot of book authors who used alternatives and felt that Amazon was blocking them out and forcing them to use a solution they didn't like very much. Amazon tried to quell the anger by explaining the reasoning and saying that authors could still use other POD solutions if they supplied Amazon with an inventory of five books (which sort of defeats the purpose of POD). So, it should come as little surprise that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Amazon, claiming that it's violating anti-trust laws in blocking out other POD suppliers. It may be difficult to prove an actual anti-trust violation -- but no matter what the result, it's rather surprising that Amazon would do this, as the company had to know it would piss off a lot of authors who have been huge supporters of the site for many years. It's hard to see how the trouble of having to fulfill from other POD providers could really be worth that much anger and ill-will.

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Filed Under: anti-trust, book sales, print on demand
Companies: amazon

11 Comments

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wasnt me, 20 May 2008 @ 1:46pm

im probably missing a few things here.

but isn't amazon just a store? (online store true but just an other store), so what is the problem?.

you don't see future shop or radio shack getting sued for not selling a certain brand or product.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2008 @ 1:51pm

Re:
Yes, you're missing a lot of few things. Amazon rents the storefront to the authors, and then demands that the author also use their printing service instead of the one that the author prefers.
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wasnt me, 20 May 2008 @ 1:52pm

Re:
4got to point out, that amazons decision PROBABLY (i stress on that since i have no personal knowledge about this)came after a few of the authors they were dealing with that used different POD providers failed to deliver the books in a timely manner.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2008 @ 1:57pm

Mike, in the future please use the less crude and jarring phrase "urinate off". Thank you.
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Franchise Whale, 20 May 2008 @ 2:16pm

Franchise Whale
Great stuff! Thanks for sharing, one fresh
idea and you can change the world, keep
up the great work.
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Evil Mike, 20 May 2008 @ 2:18pm

Re: Anonymous Urinator
What's your problem? Fuck off then.
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Lonny Paul (profile), 20 May 2008 @ 4:10pm

Amazon Owns A POD Company
Amazon owns a print-on-demand service company. Basically, they used to accept books for listing for several POD companies, then they said, "Um, we gotta protect all our revenue streams, so let's force 'em to use our service."

Now, a lawsuit.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2008 @ 4:14pm

bite me
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Rick8400, 20 May 2008 @ 5:05pm

I can understand amazon's position on this. If someone ordered a POD book from Amazon and didn't receive it for three weeks (due to an outside POD service) it would look bad for Amazon even though they had no control over the situation. I don't expect to take a package into the UPS store have it wrapped and then shipped FedEx.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2008 @ 5:32pm

If that was the case, and it wasn't just Amazon trying to make a few more bucks, then why not just re-design the service/site (or whatever, I don't know much about Amazon's services) to make it extremely freaking obvious that if you use another POD service then you're on your own. 'Pissing off' the people that want to use their service to sell their books is probably not the best way to go. Probably a better idea just to put the onus back on them instead they are responsible for late deliveries.
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wasnt me, 21 May 2008 @ 5:50am

Re:
i thought of that because its still giving them the opportunity of using there "independent" POD if they give them 5 books in inventory.

granted its not the best solution but for now i think they can get the benefit of doubt.
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