Lettre des auteurs à la justice américaine contre Amazon

Authors United P.O Box 4790 Santa Fe, NM 87502 July 14, 2015 The Hon. William J. Baer Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division United States Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20530 Dear Assistant Attorney General Baer, From the beginning of our nation, Americans have understood the central role that open and competitive markets play in promoting freedom of expression and protecting our democracy. The country’s founders, Congress and the Supreme Court have repeatedly made it clear that a concentration of private power over any marketplace of information is incompatible with American ideals of liberty, free speech, and the unfettered flow of ideas. Today a single company, Amazon, has gained unprecedented power over America’s market for books. We are not experts in antitrust law, and this letter is not a legal brief. But we are authors with a deep, collective experience in this field, and we agree with the authorities in economics and law who have asserted that Amazon’s dominant position makes it a monopoly as a seller of books and a monopsony as a buyer of books. According to published figures, this one corporation now controls the sale of: • More than 75 percent of online sales of physical books. • More than 65 percent of e-book sales. • More than 40 percent of sales of new books. • About 85 percent of ebook sales of self-published authors.