The Rise of Amazon

Margaret · 02-01-2014, 07:15 AM

I have occasion sometimes to buy books on Amazon and I am amazed at the range and depth of the books on offer. What is incredible is that they have out of the way books from fairly mainstream authors and historians, like Hugh Trevor Roper, which I didn't even know existed.
How has Amazon managed to do this?
That is they seem to have acquired the copyright or joint copyright with the authors on literally millions of books.
I haven't read anything anywhere on how they have managed to pull this one off, but is it because they have done deals with governments or international bodies, because they couldn't have approached individual copyright holders. I noticed that they are now actually printing books themselves under the Amazon imprint.
I tend to think it is a good thing that we have all these books in the public domain and that they can be downloaded on Kindle etc. But I suppose there is also a darker side to it, in that it means Amazon have also acquired immense power.
Presumably they paid for this privilege in that they are now getting royalties or joint royalties with the authors.

.

rebbonk · 02-01-2014, 10:02 AM

I used to use Amazon for a lot more than books. However, when they changed their free delivery policy a lot of items increased dramatically in price. For example, I was paying £24 for my dog food. After they stopped the free delivery that increased to around £28. Being a tightwad, I started looking elsewhere... Last bag cost me £18 delivered!

I now look elsewhere before buying from Amazon....