Amazon Dispute Now Making Movies Harder To Order 210
trazom28 writes: Hachette books aren't the only products that are now harder to order on Amazon — the online retailer is going after movies, too. Amazon has turned off the preorder function for DVDs of prominent Warner Bros. films as it seeks to raise pressure on the company during negotiations. The Lego Movie, for example, is listed as "currently unavailable" on Amazon. Set for release in the home video marketplace on June 17, there is no option to place a preorder."
Now wait (Score:5, Interesting)
To be fair, WB is the one who put amazon in a crap situation in this one. They had a pre-order for a blue ray, for like $25....The move did exceptionally better than they anticipated, so WB decided NOT to produce the cheaper blu ray, and then put out a new $40 one. Amazon then had to cancel all the other cheaper pre orders, and deal with the legitimately pissed off customers. Amazon is doing some shady things, but they certainly aren't alone in it.
Re:Now wait (Score:5, Interesting)
There is nothing shady about managing your suppliers. Every well run business does it. The only thing different is Amazon's suppliers are used to having monopoly power and getting any terms they want. Amazon is pushing back! Its a good for the consumer and I think ultimately will be good for the talent.
On the book side the job publishers actually do is shrinking (doubly so if we are talking e-books). Everyone I know that has ever had anything published or tried recently, tells me they are expected to provide manuscript in very very specific formats, already largely edited. At that point the only value adds pretty much come down to bundling it into the e-book container (they could do that themselves but for DRM signing etc) and access to the distribution channel (which Amazon could pretty easily provide them with directly), and some fancy name with authority behind it to slap on the work.
Amazon thinks they don't deserve such a big cut for all that lack of actual work; and I agree. The publishing industry does not have to be the gatekeepers anymore unless you want a large run of dead tree, where someone needs to put up real capital. A quick look at interest rates these days ought to give you an idea of what the real value of that is too.
The movie world is still a little different, the talent isn't in a position to produce a feature film, although that isn't necessarily the case with an animated work like "Lego Movie"; and if you look the gulf between what really talented folks can do in their basement vs. what Hollywood cranks out is for the most part narrowing too. So value the 'Studios' are providing is declining not matter what fantastic sums of money they manage to blow on the production. I am all for Amazon putting the squeeze on these guys too.
Amazon *IS* the market, the market should set prices. If Amazons history is any guide at all they will use any cost to compete, so as consumers we cant expect to see some of it passed on to use in the form of lower prices. I also can't think of well anything other than Amazon's own products Kindle etc, that are exclusive to them, so I am not worried about Amazon being a monopoly yet; someday it might be a concern but not now.
Re:Fuck Amazon (Score:5, Interesting)
As oppose to book publishers that want you to pay the same for an ebook as a hard copy?
It's easier to just go through life when you realize that ALL companies are evil, vile companies and they are all out to maximize THEIR profits at the expense of others.
If publishers and distributors don't want to deal with Amazon, don't do business with them. Amazon's not the only ecommerce site on the internet. Yes you may lose sales from people who want to buy it on Amazon but can't. But Amazon also loses the sale. And if people want your product, if you make it easy for them to get it elsewhere they'll still get it. If I REALLY wanted to go buy The Lego Movie and Wal-Mart didn't have it, I'd go to Best Buy. Or Target. Or some other store. This is no different.
Re:Now wait (Score:5, Interesting)
Largely I think publishers just don't give a fuck about quality anymore. If I judged publishers solely by the piss-poor print-to-e-book conversion jobs they've been doing I have to say they're fucking worthless. I'm reading one book right now on my kindle that makes it painfully clear no one at Bantam bothered to even edit the e-book format. There are so many word fuckups from the OCR process it's not even funny.
I've actually had similar experiences with Dune. It's just sad that they don't even bother checking the content after running it through OCR software and then they have the gaul to charge nearly $10 for what amounts to a fucking PDF.
Pisses me off to no end.
Re:Barnes and Nobles still lets you preorder (Score:5, Interesting)
The usual villain here is Walmart. They have been abusing suppliers long before Amazon got in the act.
Point of consideration that Walmart bullies around smaller suppliers while Amazon is taking a stand against one of the major publishers with Hachette and Warner Bros which is operated by Time Warner who is currently seeking Anti-Trust approval to merge with Comcast.
If anything, Amazon's ability to stand up to Big Media seems to be in the best interest of consumers. Big Media is where the evil monopolies seem to be. Amazon's power over online sales relies on convenience, their customer supplied rating/feedback system, and their pricing policies. Amazon wants to charge small for high quality because cheap crap will be rated as such on Amazon and nobody will buy it. Meanwhile Walmart wants to charge small for low quality because who cares about customers and suppliers if they can earn 20% of half a Trillion bucks each year (http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/wmt/financials).