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Amazon's might divides opinion at world's biggest book fair

AFP, Frankfort
US online retail giant Amazon may be absent from the stands at the world’s biggest book fair but it has still been at the heart ofa heated debate.
Amazon threw a shadow over Germany's book industry on the inaugural day of the Frankfurt Book Fair Tuesday by announcing the launch of a monthly flatrate offer for unlimited access to e-book titles.
"We fear unfair competition on prices as well as authors' fees through this service, " Austrian author Gerhard Ruiss told a discussion by a panel of authors at the book fair this week.
"Amazon doesn't have the market it would like to have in Europe. That's the reason for this new step," he complained.
Ruiss is one of about 2,000 German-language writers to have signed a petition protesting against the methods used by Amazon in its e-book price battle with Scandinavian publishing house Bonnier, a major player in German publishing.
The authors have accused Amazon of delaying the release of books and boycotting authors signed to publishing houses in dispute with the US company.
They had taken their cue from US writ-
ers involved in a similar protest over Amazon's e-book dispute with Hachette which represents "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling among others.
Germany is Amazon's biggest market outside the United States but the company has been hit by repeated strikes in a long-running wage dispute and a scathing TV documentary broadcast last year.
Despite it not having a stand among the thousands of exhibitors filling the sprawling halls of the book fair in the western German city, which opens to the public Saturday, the Seattle-based company is at the heart of many of the discussions.
A conference during the five-day book fair brought in to sharp focus the depth of feeling on both sides of the argument.
While one audience member stated they had "boycotted" Amazon for 20 years, another argued that the US company enabled new authors "to be published and find their readers" and pointed the finger at big publishing houses.
Online business is estimated to account for about 16 percent of the German book market, of which 50 to 70 percent are Amazon sales, according to figures by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association.