Ebook Antitrust

Here we had thought, silly us, that the Justice Department's antitrust division was supposed to intervene, if at all, in favor of competitive markets, not against them. Now it looks like one possible outcome of the Justice Department's antitrust involvement in the electronic book market, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, is that Apple "could exit the market." Since right now Apple's iPad is a big player in an ebook market that consists of Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook, and some other smaller players like Sony and Kobo, any government-enforced settlement that led to Apple getting out of the business would mean less competition, not more. That's bad for authors, of which I am one. And long-run, it's probably bad for readers, too.