Amazon Monopoly on eBooks Cracking. Power Grab Defeated By Publisher, the Creator of Content.

(Full disclosure, my wife is a published writer, but we still have major disagreements over how copyrighted material is used and how tight those restrictions should be.)
Over the last week, Amazon did what many consumers should find shocking; they pulled a publishers ebooks and physical books from their site over a retail pricing disagreement. Think about that. Instead of continuing to sell both kinds of books, they just disappeared.

For smaller publishers, such a move would be a killer. Such power by a retailer over the publishers of intellectual property, and an artists creation, is stunning. Check this out from PCworld:

According to PCWorld, "After temporarily halting sales of Macmillan books (that includes physical and e-books) on Amazon.com over the weekend, Amazon did and about face Sunday night and said it will start selling Macmillan books again and cede to the publisher's demands to charge more for titles sold for the Kindle digital reader.

Amazing isn't it. Future and current authors should be scared to death of their ability to make a living knowing Amazon thinks they're getting paid to much, that there is some imagined dollar amount that is fair while another dollar amount is untenable. Should established popular authors sell their books at the same price as a first time writer?

Why are recently released films, DVD's and Blu-ray's priced higher than previously released media? Why are some movies more expensive than others? The same goes for music. At some point, the creative writers and their publishers should have ultimate control over what their content is worth. Retailers can then offer up the product and let the consumer decide. Unless of course you're Amazon. What's to stop Amazon from lowering the ebook prices even further to sell more Kindle's?

According to the NY Times: Because Amazon has discounted the price of most new and popular e-books on its Kindle e-reader to $9.99, it loses money on most of those sales. Amazon’s goal has been strategic: it aims to establish a low price for e-books that will have the ancillary benefit of helping it sell more Kindle devices.

Keeping that in mind...

Publishers like Macmillan have been complaining that Amazon doesn't charge enough for its e-books. "We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles," Amazon said in a statement on Sunday.

Ceasing the sale of ALL TITLES! The online retail god has spoken! Poor Amazon. They even made this "pot calling the kettle black" statement:

Amazon claims prices as high as $15 for e-books are "needlessly high", but explained that it had to "capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles."

What, publishers have a monopoly over their own product? WTF!

The Amazon monopoly won't last for long. As much as I hate Apple, they seem to value the work of artists a whole lot more than Amazon:

In contrast, Apple adopted the agency model for the iBookstore on the iPad, where the publisher sets the price for e-books and keeps 70 percent of the sale, while the agency (Apple) keeps the remaining 30 percent. Amazon's model is widely seen as damaging to the publishing industry because consumers are paying too little for the titles, yet the retailer was able to set the prices because of the popularity of its Kindle reading device.

Amazingly, some writers see Amazon as the victim. Just wait till Amazon decides $9.99 is a little overpriced. Can you say "starving artist?"