The Teckki Says

While we are all waiting to see the Big Game between New Orleans and Indianapolis, there's another battle of titans that's going on between electronic and the publishing industry with Amazon.com and Macmillan Publishing Company. Seems that Macmillan got tired of watching its first-run, New York Times best seller list books being sold on Kindles for $9.99, and felt the digital versions were worthy of a field-goal point price bump or better. When Amazon blocked the attempt, Macmillan took its ball (I mean its books) off the field. Amazon then decided it could not play the game without Macmillan. This was a nice goal-line stand by a publisher, but in the end, its' ball control strategy will fail, because Amazon, and a walk-on player named Apple, control the field. No one controls the clock, but it appears that time does not favor the publishing industry.

Maybe it takes a genius to understand that whoever controls the delivery system eventually controls the game, but that genius doesn't have to understand much. The publishing industry seems to think that it can dictate though content, and to some extent, it can. It may help to remember other titans who clashed with digital to see how the publishing industry will eventually fare.

The Music Industry. Who can forget, as they saw their business model fail so completely? They'd like you to believe that piracy more than anything eroded their industry. It might have been the train, but it rode a delivery system that the labels no longer owned, and couldn't control. When that didn't work, they thought that suing their customers was a road back to profitability. They were wrong.

The Print Industry, as defined by newspapers and magazines. They actually helped their own demise by putting their content online, made it free, and now want people to pay for it. If they were an ATM charging me to get to my money, their plan might work, but unless they all decide to make all of their content subscription at the same time (anti-trust and collusion laws would prevent this), they can kiss that dream goodbye.

The Motion Picture Industry. They have tried to pre-empt and modify the delivery system through devices, copy protection and legislation, but the net effect this could eventually have is to suppress the market, in the same manner the Digital Audio Tape player was killed by the protectionist music industry. The jury is still out on the Movie Industry, but music CD's once enjoyed a no-copy world before their demise (see earlier paragraph).

Macmillan's defensive stance may have kept Amazon from scoring points, and has no doubt emboldened other publishers to run up the score as well, as they are now pounding Amazon with their new ground game. Amazon punted, and Apple appears to also be giving up yardage as to not be burned by the big pass play.

For now, the Publishing Industry appears to be winning, and it would be great if the game was decided on downs or half-time scores. But holding or raising prices is like trying to keep a score tied. You eventually have to either get into the end-zone, or give up the ball. Because both Apple and Amazon sell more than books, there's a lot of time left on the clock, and they control the field.