B&N Yanks DC Titles After Exclusive Amazon Deal 125
theodp writes "In response to DC Entertainment's agreement to exclusively offer digital versions of certain titles in Amazon Kindle format, Nook maker Barnes & Noble has begun pulling DC Entertainment's graphic novels off its shelves. Confirming the decision, B&N said in a statement, 'To sell and promote the physical book in our store showrooms, and not have the eBook available for sale would undermine our promise to Barnes & Noble customers to make available any book, anywhere, anytime.' Nice to see the pair is still able to keep their feud fresh on the 11th anniversary of the 1-Click patent infringement lawsuit."
sounds interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
Without knowing what's really going on, but it seems that someone there has decided that a principle is more important than the quarterly report, and I applaud that. It will probably benefit them in the long run (e.g. leverage in the next negotiations), but it's always interesting when a company gives a reason other than "it was the profitable thing to do".
Good Thing (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the rule of thumb that monopolies are bad and competition is good applies here. Barnes & Noble's decision shows integrity from my point of view. I think this sends a good message to publishers; in order to be successful in the digital world they should provide customers with more option, not less.
Re:Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Better solution. Don't buy or support them. Exclusivity deals take away consumer choice.
Re:Good Thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Exclusive deals aren't about labor - they're about exploiting copyright to limit consumer choice.
The problem with ebooks isn't labor at all. Google has tons of books digitized and made available for searching at no cost to publishers at all, but publishers sue them because they don't like not being the gatekeepers.
If DC just emailed B&N a .mobi file I'm sure they'd be happy to convert it so that they can sell it.
And, ultimately, if you take anything to the extreme it often breaks down. That doesn't mean that promoting platform-neutral formats is a bad thing. We shouldn't avoid making stuff available on 99% of the hardware out there just because it won't run on a toaster.
Exclusive deals are anti consumer (Score:2, Insightful)
Exclusive deals of any sort should be illegal. They artificially limit the market resulting in opportunities to raise prices (and who is not going to do that) and are anti-consumer.
For those that don't like the intrusion of laws into "free markets" then anyone engaging in exclusive deals should lose the protection of other laws like copyright protection. So go ahead and Region Encode and DRM protect that content but it loses all copyright or other legal protection.
Re:Exclusive deals are anti consumer (Score:0, Insightful)
It's an exclusive deal on a 'want' type item. Get over it. It's not an exclusive deal on a necessity, they aren't saying this is the only place you can get water. If you don't like it, then don't buy it from the entity holding the exclusive deal. You won't die if you don't get to buy a Batman comic... Hell, if your really concerned, you'll develop your own comic to compete!