Legal News
Romance writer Christine DeMaio, who also publishes as CD Reiss, has launched a proposed class-action lawsuit against Amazon, alleging an unlawful monopoly on audiobook sales. She is represented by Hagens Berman, which has brought various publishing-related class-action suits in recent years, with mixed success. The filing claims that Amazon’s Audible ACX program, which is open to self-publishers, charges a fee of 60% for authors who use their platform exclusively – but increases that fee to 75% if the authors sell on other sites. She alleges that Amazon also adds ‘‘non-price penalties,’’ like pushing nonexclusive audiobooks down in search results and refusing to allow them to accept preorders or offer promotional discounts. The suit says, ‘‘These penalties coerce audiobook authors into not distributing their books on other sites, thereby preventing the emergence of rivals to Amazon who could acquire enough content to effectively compete and offer lower distribution fees to authors.’’ The suit puts Amazon’s market share at 80%, which includes Audible audiobooks sold by Apple. For more.
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