Let us say you are an author of a book. Amazon wants to publish your book. Apple
ID: 333037 • Letter: L
Question
Let us say you are an author of a book. Amazon wants to publish your book. Apple wants to publish your book. Both companies offer you equal pay for your book, but Apple sells the book at $9.99 and Amazon sells it $11.99.
Now, Amazon sells thousands more of your book than Apple does, so Amazon has made more money. You go back to Amazon and say that you want to be paid more royalties because they sold more books than Apple. Amazon say "NO" because you signed over the rights to book with the original contract.
a. Do you have any recourse? If no, why? If yes, why?
b. Amazon charged $2.00 more per book and sold more copies. Is that fair? Why or why not?
c. Rama writes a new business law textbook and sells it at the bookstore for $250 and you can buy it on Amazon for $250...the same price. He offers the Ebook version for $150 but it is missing may pictures, graphs, and exercises. Is this fair and legal?
Explanation / Answer
a. No, in this case I do not have any recourse because the contract has been made and there everything is mentioned and it cannot be violated. In order to earn more the rights can be given to other business organizations as well which will increase the amount of royalty that I receive.
b. Yes, this is fair because it is clear that there is no monopoly so the organization can use this strategy by which books can be sold at a high price and by selling at a higher price than its competitors still the organization is able to sell more copies, then this can be appreciated because the organization actually is capable to sell more at more price which is a core capability of the organization.
c. No, is this not fair and is illegal because the intellectual property of the book is being affected and hence it cannot be done because the original version and the eBook version has to be identical in terms of content and there should be no deviation.
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