Connecticut Attorney General Investigating Amazon Publishing deal

We reported last week that Amazon cut a really sweet deal with a New York Publishing group. They cut exclusive ebook deals for such authors as Salmon Rushdie, Oliver Sacks and Phillip Roth. Amazon also gets access to the estates of William S. Burroughs of the Beat Generation fame.

This created an uproar in the industry, especially since e-books are now outselling real books.

This exclusive arrangement with Amazon has attracted some powerful opposition in the form of Connecticut attorney general, Richard Blumenthal. He has opened an investigation to see whether or not the deals recently done by Amazon and Apple have violated any rules and regulations. His main beef is this exclusive arrangements will be anti-competitive to new E-Book companies from starting up. Also, not only does it affect start-ups, but it could also prevent Sony, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Boarders from selling ebooks by specific authors.

Richard had this to say “The e-book market is set to explode—with analysts predicting that e-book readers will be among the holiday season’s biggest electronics gifts—warranting prompt review of the potential anti-consumer impacts. This restriction blocks cheaper and competitive prices for consumers.”

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Michael Kozlowski  (1808 Posts)

Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about electronic readers and technology for the last four years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the Huffington Post, CNET and more. Michael frequently travels to international events such as IFA, Computex, CES, Book Expo and a myriad of others. If you have any questions about any of his articles, please send Michael Kozlowski an email to michael@goodereader.com

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