DBD/Amazon updates, and a plea for sanity

Updates to the DBD Amazon pricing debacle:

Bleeding Cool finds the same error may have afflicted Barnes and Noble online.  Before you click those affiliate links, though, consider what’s happening on Amazon right now, and the potential of more liabilities being passed on to DBD, or even publishers.  (That is if this is indeed another “glitch,” and not BN recognizing a unique opportunity.)

For some reason, Tucker Stone at Comixology decides to come clean about his past life as a criminal mastermind.

Publishers Weekly cites an anonymous source that the removal of buy buttons from all DBD-distributed books is a temporary measure as Amazon fixes the problem. (Spotted via The Beat)

This has become serious business.  It seems those high-priced Marvels are the main source of the problem (ostensibly because those were the books that Bleeding Cool plugged, and the discounts were the greatest), but an extended delisting may affect all of DBD’s clients.  That includes Dark Horse (Berserk), Digital Manga Publishing (all those yaoi titles), Aurora Publishing (yaoi, women’s manga), Bandai (Code Geass), Dr. Master (King of Fighters), Udon (various Capcom art books), Oni Press (Scott Pilgrim), Graphic-Sha Publishing (How to Draw Manga), Japanime (Manga University series), IDW (Kazuo Umezu), Eros Comix (Mangerotica), Top Shelf (AX), Antarctic Press (Gold Digger), Yaoi Press (Yaoi Hentai)… and that’s just the manga-related companies I can suss out from the DBD website.

Before you milk Amazon for those gift vouchers or tie up their phone lines, please, a plea for sanity… we don’t know how this is going to play out.  Will either Amazon or DBD take complete responsibility, or will the costs be spread out to all the publishers?  If you haven’t noticed, the past year hasn’t exactly been spectacular for everyone.  And for many of them, an extended delisting from Amazon could severely impact their business.  I know everyone likes a deal, and everyone wants to be treated fairly… but, just for now, set all that aside for the sake of all the publishers that may be caught up in this, through no fault of their own.

Edit: Well worth hunting down are comments by Nat Gertler and Torsten Adair on how this will affect publishers.

Edit 2: Spotted via Robot 6, 4thLetter and Comics Alliance weigh in on pricing and “fan entitlement.”  4thLetter’s use of a Walmart analogy is rather apt… this whole ordeal seems like a cyber equivalent of a greeter-stomping mob.

Edit 3: Comics Worth Reading asks whether Amazon may be trying to separate the “good” orders from opportunistic ones.  It would be sensible, and if most orders fall into the latter category, it might throw another wrench into Bleeding Cool’s theory that this sales event is proof of any great under-served comic reading contingent due to pricing.  How many of the orders were actually from retailers looking to restock their shelves?

+++

Funimation has indicated that it may reverse its position on editing or redacting portions of the BD/DVD editions of Dance in the Vampire Bund, although they remain non-committal on future episodes.  The statement over at ANN seems to point to the initial decision being a legal one… if that’s the case, it was an over-cautious move.  A logical and legally sound decision, for sure, but one which does not reflect the actual risks involved, which is rather minimal.

The irony is that one of the best defenses against an obscenity prosecution is wide distribution, if one could secure it.  Even the most zealous prosecutor would have a hard time going after someone for owning a film that is readily available at the local big box electronics store.  So the question that remains is whether retailers are skittish of handling material like Bund.  Hopefully not.

+++

Yoshitoshi ABe has a self-published manga on Amazon Kindle!  Professionally translated into English!  (Thanks for the heads up, JRB)