Amazon.com, your friendly cyber-hood bookstore, might be setting a dangerous precedent for discourse distributors — a company that controls the releases of popular media like movies, television shows, books, song or articles.

In American history, no distribution company has gained total control of a media industry. This would give Amazon.com unabated power to dictate the flow of information from books to the public. Some would say this is dangerous because Amazon.com, like any monopoly, could abuse its high standing. I say it’s borderline dystopian, because if Amazon.com gained near total control of the e-book industry, it could suppress free speech and strangle the flow of information.

Consolidation of any industry inevitably brings it closer to the federal government. Monopolies are particularly dangerous in popular media, because these industries preserve free speech and the flow of information. Four media monopolies, one in each primary industry — movies and television shows, books, music and the news media — would allow for unification between big distributors and big government.

Much like big business and big government have gained control of the economy, big distributors and big government could control every possible medium — visual, recorded and print — for disseminating information.

As recently as last winter, there was a competitive triumvirate of e-readers that included Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iPad and Barnes and Noble’s Nook.

But on June 25, after a fourth quarter in which the Nook lost $177 million, the “world’s largest bookstore” announced it would cease production of its color tablets. Then, on July 10, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote ruled that Apple violated antitrust laws by conspiring with major North American publishers to raise and fix e-book prices.

Both developments solidify Amazon’s traction as the only electronic titan in an industry steadily migrating toward the electronic medium.

Apple holds only about a 20-percent share of e-book sales compared to Amazon’s approximately 60-percent share. By ruling against Apple, the federal government is helping to inflate Amazon’s market share back to its 2009 levels, when the Kindle briefly controlled more than 90 percent of the market, before the introduction of the Nook and iPad.

Now, if Amazon or the federal government deemed a book inflammatory, the book’s publisher would not have the option of moving the book to another distributor.

In 2003, musicians faced a similar situation that authors face today. Apple’s iTunes store had total control of the electronic market, but Apple did not have total control of musical discourse, because fans still downloaded free songs and albums from pirated sources.

In response to their socialistic admirers and Apple’s monopoly, progressive musicians have taken it upon themselves to democratize the music industry.

Radiohead released its seventh album in 2007, “In Rainbows,” on its website and allowed fans to pay whatever fee they deemed appropriate. On July 4, Jay-Z released his 13th album, “Magna Carta Holy Grail,” for free to all Samsung Galaxy users.

But the capitalist response of artists like Radiohead and Jay-Z has been exactly that, a response. The difference with books is, avid readers are not thinking like socialists and scouring the Internet for pirated titles.

Unlike musicians, authors might have to make the first move. It will take an A-list name with instant best-selling cache. Perhaps J.K. Rowling will ask us to name our price, or Dan Brown will reward us for owning an iPad. They just might save their timeless craft from an autocratic oblivion.

As media oligopolies continue to inflate, artists and their fans continue to find new and creative ways to not need them. But if authors don’t break free of Amazon, media distributors will have an elephant model to follow. Like the financial crisis in 2008, that might just allow the government to have uncomfortable power over a free enterprise.

Jarrad Saffren is a senior television and radio and film and political science major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at jdsaffre@syr.edu and followed on Twitter at @JarradSaff.

Published on July 25, 2013 at 7:12 am