The Latest in IT Security

Amazon is finally providing some explanation for its ongoing dispute with the publisher Hachette, explaining that its taken issue over Hachettes insistence on pricing ebooks above $9.99. In a note today, Amazon explains that its not actually looking for a particularly large share of the revenue on ebook sales: its only interested in taking 30 percent, a fairly standard figure for digital store sales and the same figure that it says Hachette proposed in 2010. Instead, the change Amazon wants to see is for most ebooks to sell for $9.99 or less, with only a small number of specialized titles being offered at prices above that. With an ebook, theres no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out-of-stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market — e-books cannot be resold as used books, Amazons books team writes.