In today’s New York Times, an account of the scrambling and general mess going on in e-books as Amazon and Apple try to position themselves in the market ahead of the iPad launch. They are each pushing different pricing models — Amazon who sets the price to consumers and negotiates the price to publishers and Apple who will let publishers choose their own price but will just take a 30% cut (a la the App Store). Actually, Amazon aren’t totally against that model but are looking for lock in deals and guarantees of not being undercut if they move to the ‘agency’ model. Publishers don’t know what to do but would like to keep their options open. Read more »

My colleagues at the Law School have just written an 
