Let's be clear, monopolies are not illegal. Illegality is only established when a monopoly is proven to be conducting itself in an anti-competitive nature.

Depends on the terms of service, which no one reads (have you read the Slashdot Terms of Service?). So they may or may not have the right to take it back from the people to whom they sold a license to the work (I've not read the license agreement - but neither have you so your post is speculative at best and may be downright incorrect). Data people, data.

But you "censor" every day when you choose what to watch (or not) on TV, or on the radio, or that which you read. By your argument that Amazon should be required to sell everything, you should be required to consume everything. Oh and while I'm at it - you're an idiot: "just like how 80% of all industries are monopolized by 3 to 4 corporations" it's called a monopoly because there is just one ("mono"), not "3 to 4". And i have no idea what you mean by your cliched "Business is about nothing" - Business is actually about transactions and exchange of value.

AltaVista is offering free searches to anyone still working at Pabst.....

www.onsmash.com

Actually it's the folks at SUN who promised to create an independent foundation and then didn't, who owe the explanation. Then again the contributors who poured in their valuable contributions and watched, and waited and hoped are likewise culpable - expectations do not a legally binding commitment make.

"It's a crime that Oracle is allowed to have their clutches on it."

What exactly is the criminal activity in which Oracle has engaged? Or is your comment just foot-stomping hyperbole?

The fact is that anyone working on the project knew under what basis they were working. Getting all petulant after the fact is hardly a compelling argument.

First they ignore you: ""
Then they ridicule you: "Ho ho - tiny little screen; who'd buy one of these toys?"
Then they fight you: "Crap - we better make our own ebook reader and screw around with pricing to protect ourselves. But we're kinda late and our pricing strategies are reactive and ill thought out"
Then they loose: "Double crap - all our best selling authors are now publishing their own book directly on the Kindle and taking 85% of the revenue rather than the 10% we used to give them. Ingrates!"

Feel free to bookmark this post and come back to it in 5 years time to see how it all came true.....

You know, after getting up in the wee small hours of the morning, driving miles to find a spot to observe the launch and having paid good cash for a video camera (and PC and editing software), you'd think that the joker that took the video would learn **how to pan with the moving object**!. That's "pan with the object" not wait until the object has left the frame and then jerk the camera up until it's at the bottom. And you know, you can buy cameras these days with image stabilization (or even stabilize in post). *very* frustrating video.

Not that I've read TFA, but isn't this what free market economics is supposed to prevent? When a single entity can have that kind of power, isn't it a monopoly?

Holding a dominant position or a monopoly in a market is not illegal in itself, a monopoly is said to be coercive when the monopoly firm actively prohibits competitors from entering the field. In this case authors have many choices regarding publication: traditional publishers, self-publication; Publishers have choice over to whom they sell their books: Amazon, B&N, Borders and 1000's of independent book stores; E-book readers are increasingly entering this market segment: Kindle, Nook and many other that we saw demonstrated at CES a few weeks ago.

So no. This is what free market economics is supposed to encourage. In my opinion, Amazon trying to keep prices down is a great thing. The fact that some authors chose to publish their books with MacMillan who tried to reduce their readership by jacking up the price should give incentive to said authors to find a better publisher that actually wants to increase their readership.

"that isn't company growth.

Sure it is Sherlock. Amazon just announced Q4 results: Revenue rose 42 percent to $9.52 billion.
Please tell me how that isn't growth...?

From the article: "Federal law says recording companies are entitled to $750 to $30,000 per illegally downloaded song - but a jury may raise that to as much as $150,000 per track if it finds the infringements were willful."

Huh? So it *is* possible to use the "cat walked on my keyboard" defense and win? How can downloading music without adhering to the defined licensing terms not be willful? Ignorance is no defense for breaking the law (no matter if if it is a good or bad law).