From: Henrietta Thornton <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:58:33 -0500 Complaints about Amazon are ALL I hear lately. First the sales tax debate, now their app that allows you to check a price in another store, buy on Amazon, and get $5. Store owners are furious. Etta. Etta Thornton-Verma Associate Editor, Reference at Library Journal and School Library Journal New York, NY 10013 Email: [log in to unmask] Phone: (646) 380-0748 -----Original Message----- From: LibLicense-L Discussion Forum Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 8:49 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Future of the subscription model From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:33:18 -0600 Well, Chuck, if these NDAs are so outrageous, the Big Deals so one-sided, why do libraries keep giving in, after making loud protests? It's one thing to complain, but if those who complain then don't act, the greedy capitalists keep winning, right? By the way, I think you mean "oligopoly," not "oligarchy." But I'm not sure, with the multiplicity of players involved in scholarly journal publishing, the market control of the largest publishers technically even constitutes an oligopoly. There is even more market concentration in textbook publishing. As I've said before, universities have no one but themselves to blame for letting STM journal publishing be captured by commercial publishers. Universities had their own healthy and well-functioning publishing infrastructure to use if they had so chosen, but for whatever reason allowed STM publishing to migrate outside to the commercial sector. If you think the domination of this sector is harmful, how come we don't hear complaints about Amazon, which is as predatory a commercial actor as there is anywhere, playing dirty time and again to increase its market share and profits? And how come libraries have facilitated the dominance of Google in mass digitization, which redounds to Google's benefit and its shareholders as much as anyone else's? What's that about casting stones if you live in glass houses? Sandy Thatcher