Booklocker and Amazon have reached a settlement agreement in the antitrust class action lawsuit Booklocker filed against the e-tailer in 2008. The Booklocker suit was in response to a decision by Amazon to make all print-on-demand publishers use its BookSurge (now CreateSpace) division if they want to sell their titles directly on the Amazon Web site or face the removal of their buy button. Under the agreement, Amazon agreed to not remove Booklocker books from its Web site or to remove the “Add to Shopping Cart” button. Amazon, which admitted to no wrongdoing, also agreed to pay $300,000 in attorney’s fees.
Booklocker’s Angela Hoy said the agreement by Amazon to rescind its “pay-us-to-print-your books or else policy” achieved the goal of the lawsuit. “We didn’t do this for money. We did it to make Amazon understand that covert efforts aimed at forcing POD publishers to pay Amazon/BookSurge (now Createspace) to print their books is not the way responsible corporate citizens should act,” Hoy wrote on the Booklocker site.
