THE price-fixing complaint that America’s Department of Justice (DoJ) filed this week against Apple and five of the world’s “Big Six” book publishers has a triumphalist tone, describing secret meetings in “upscale Manhattan restaurants”. But it seems to take a rather narrow view of what is going on in the e-book industry.

本周，美国司法部（Doj）以密谋垄断电子书价格的罪名起诉苹果公司和全球六大书籍出版商中的五家，称相关人士在“曼哈顿的高级餐厅”内进行秘密会谈。对这件案，美国司法部有必胜的把握。但以这样的眼光看待电子书行业现状似乎太过狭隘了。

Until two years ago Amazon, the dominant player in the market thanks to its Kindle e-reader, kept publishers on the “wholesale model” for e-books. This let them set the wholesale price but let Amazon sell the books at a loss, making it harder for newer e-reader makers such as Barnes & Noble to challenge its near-monopoly. That made for cheap e-books, competing against the print versions. Publishers and authors also feared that if Amazon remained dominant, it would eventually impose lower wholesale prices on them too, forcing weaker publishers and other booksellers out of business. They were therefore delighted when Apple, on launching the iPad in 2010, offered them an “agency model”, whereby they set the retail prices and give the retailer a fixed cut.

直至2年前，凭借Kindle电子阅读器雄霸电子书市场的亚马逊仍一直让出版商们以“批发模式”出售电子书。在此模式下，出版商能够制定批发价，但亚马逊却能以低于成本价出售电子书，如此一来那些新兴的电子阅读器制造商（如Barnes & Noble）就更难挑战几乎垄断电子书市场的亚马逊了。“批发模式”压低了电子书的价格，使之能与实体书进行竞争。出版商和作家们也担心如果亚马逊一直雄霸电子书市场，最终就会强迫他们接受更低的批发价，迫使实力较弱的出版商和其他书商退出这个行业。于是当苹果公司（在2010年推出IPAD）为他们推出“代理模式”（即由出版商和书商来定零售价并给零售商一个固定的折扣）时，他们感到非常高兴。

Amazon later offered the same terms to big publishers, though not to smaller ones, and the prices of many e-books rose. The DoJ says this came about through deliberate collusion between Apple and five of the Big Six. (Random House, which joined the iBookstore later, isn’t included.)

后来亚马逊也向大型出版商提供同样的经销模式，不过较小的出版商就无此待遇，许多电子书的价格因此上涨了。美国司法部说出现这种局面是因为苹果与六大出版商中的五家相互串通。（其中并不包括后来并入苹果线上书店（iBookstore）的兰登书屋。）

The price to consumers is the DoJ’s main beef. Three of the publishers, Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, have settled with the DoJ by agreeing to refrain for two years from deals that constrain retailers’ ability to offer discounts. They can strike new agency agreements, but cannot “prohibit the retailer from reducing the price set by the publishers.”

司法部不满的主要是在价钱方面消费者利益受损。其中三家出版商阿歇特出版集团（Hachette）、哈泼-柯林斯公司（HarperCollins）及西蒙-舒斯特出版公司（Simon & Schuster）已和司法部和解，同意两年内不进行限制零售商打折的交易。出版商可以和零售商达成新的代理协议，但是出版商不能“禁止零售商以低于其设定的价格出售图书”。”

But price is not the only consideration in anti-competitive behaviour, says Leiv Blad, co-chair of the antitrust group at Bingham McCutchen, a law firm; the variety of the market is too. “For publishers to attempt to seek higher prices could be pro-competitive if it led to more output of books,” he says—so long as they didn’t collude in doing so. And even if they did, as the DoJ thinks it can show, punishing the big publishers could hurt smaller ones.

但在反竞争行为当中价格并非唯一要考虑的因素，市场多样性也是其一，Bingham McCutchen（一家律师事务所）的反托拉斯律师团的联席主席莱夫•布莱德（Leiv Blad）说道。“试图提高价格对于出版商而言是有利于竞争的，只要这种情况能让它们出版更多书，”他说道，前提是他们不是串通好这样做的就行。即便如司法部认为其能证明的那样，他们是串通好的，处罚大型出版商也可能会殃及较小的出版商。

Independent publishers account for around half of e-book sales in America, estimates Curt Matthews, head of the Independent Publishers Group (IPG), a book distributor. But whereas e-books from the Big Six became, on average, more expensive under the agency model, data from Smashwords, another indie distributor, show that since Apple gave its publishers agency terms, the average price of their titles in the iBookstore has fallen by 25%. That, according to Mark Coker, Smashwords’ founder, could be because indie publishers set prices to attract customers, whereas the big ones are more concerned about covering their large overheads.

图书经销商独立出版集团（IPG）的负责人克特•马修斯（Curt Matthews）估计，独立出版商的电子书销量约占美国市场份额的一半。另一家独立经销商Smashwords的数据显示，自从苹果公司为其出版商开出代理价格后，其线上电字书店（iBookstore）的电子书的平均价格就下降了四分之一。但六大出版商的电子书平均价格在代理模式下却有所上涨。Smashwords的创始人马克•库克（Mark Coker）说，这可能是因为独立出版商要通过价格来吸引顾客，而大型出版商却更关心如何负担自身大笔的日常开支。

But independent publishers did not get agency terms from Amazon. With this antitrust case, they now are even less likely to. And in recent contract negotiations, it has increased other fees to publishers, which the small ones are least able to pay. In February, after IPG refused the new terms, Amazon cut nearly 5,000 of its titles. Since Amazon sells 62% of e-readers and 14% (a rapidly growing share) of tablets in America, according to data from the Pew Research Centre—figures that are likely to rise if it can restore the wholesale model—being excised from its website is a bad blow.

但独立出版商并无法享受亚马逊的代理价格，如今闹出这个反托拉斯案，就更不可能了。在最近的合同协商中，亚马逊提高了出版商要缴纳的其他费用，负担这些费用对小型出版商而言是最困难的。2月，IPG拒绝接受亚马逊提出的新价格，亚马逊就将IPG将近5000本电子书下架了。这对IPG而言是个沉重打击，因为皮尤研究中心的数据显示，亚马逊在美国电子阅读器及平板电脑的市场份额分别为62%和14%（正在迅速上升）。若亚马逊重新采取批发模式，那这两个份额可能会上升。

There is one silver lining. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, recently starting selling digital versions of all her titles on her own site, Pottermore, without digital-rights management (DRM)—a form of encryption that prevents piracy but also locks an e-book to one e-reader. Instead, the digital files carry a watermark that encodes the buyer’s identity to discourage piracy. Amazon and other retailers agreed, for a cut, to reroute their own customers to Pottermore. There they can send their new e-books to up to eight different e-readers.

不过事情仍是有一线希望的。最近，《哈里•波特》的作者J.K罗琳开始在没有数字版权管理（DMR）的情况下在自己的网站Pottermore上出售她所有作品的电子书。DMR是一种数字加密技术，能防止盗版，但缺点是使一本电子书只能在一台电子阅读器上阅读。相反，Pottermore的数字档案中有一个水印，能为电子书购买者编码，以防盗版。亚马逊和其他零售商已同意向自己的顾客提供Pottermore的链接，并从中收取提成。在Pottermore上顾客们最多可以和8台电子阅读器分享自己新买的电子书。

Very few authors have enough clout to emulate Ms Rowling. And publishers and agents are scared of losing DRM. But “what happened in music [where DRM has largely disappeared] will sooner or later happen in books, and for the same reason,” says Andrew Rhomberg of Jellybooks, an e-book recommendations site. If Ms Rowling’s example could hasten that, it would make consumers less tied to a single device, giving authors and publishers—especially the small fry—more power, too.

没多少作家有足够的名气来效仿J.K罗琳。而出版商和代理商都害怕失去DMR。但“在音乐行业（在其中DMR基本上已销声匿迹）发生的事迟早都会在图书业中重演，原因和音乐行业一样，”电子书推荐网站Jellybooks的Andrew Rhomberg说道。若J.K罗琳的举动能够让电子书行业更快脱离DMR，消费者就不会像现在这样局限于一台电子阅读器，作家和出版商们（尤其是小出版商）也会有更多的主动权。