The Consumer Federation of America research director Mark Cooper defended the Department of Justice’s eBook pricing lawsuit against major publishers and Apple.
The consumer advocacy group challenged lawsuit criticism filed by Barnes & Noble and the American Booksellers Association. In his official statement (PDF link), Cooper asserted: “In order to defend cartel agency pricing the brick and mortar bookstores and celebrity authors have had to concoct a description of the market in which bookstores are squeezed between two much more efficient distribution models – big box mass marketers on the one side and long-tail e-tailers on the other.”
Cooper also argued that these bookstores and celebrity authors are engaging in “a ‘luddite’ rant against change” as they criticize the lawsuit. He wrote: “One astute observer of the music business in the digital age concluded that ‘it looks like the record business is doomed. The music business, however, has a bright future.’ Books are being devalued, literature is not.”