HarperCollins has reached an agreement with the The Competition Bureau to donate $150,000 worth of books and restore retail pricing. The outcome follows a bureau investigation that concluded an anti-competitive arrangement between HarperCollins and other major publishers who colluded with Apple to drive up prices.
The bureau said the consent agreement with HarperCollins follows similar settlements reached with Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster and Apple last January that permit retailers to sell digital books they publish at a discount.
This agreement is only valid for a few short years, but it should drive down ebook prices. Kobo is challenging this ruling because they have to renegotiate all of their existing publisher contracts under the new price agreement. They also feel that the Canadian market is one of their strongest and if Amazon starts discounting ebooks again, it would be a serious blow to Kobo.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
