E-Books With the Explosive Growth of Electronic Book, or E-Book, Readers

Multiple Choice

E-Books
With the explosive growth of electronic book, or e-book, readers like Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook and even smart phones like the iPhone and BlackBerry devices, book pricing is becoming a significant concern for book publishers. Digital book sales have grown exponentially from almost non-existent in 2002 to more than $120 million in 2009. While these sales are still small compared to industry sales, they are expected to grow even more in the coming years due to the plethora of e-book readers coming on the market. This creates a dilemma for publishers, though, because the average price of a hardcover book, which is the bread-and-butter of publishers' profits, is $27.00, whereas the price of an e-book is $9.99. To protect profits, some publishers, like Simon & Schuster, are delaying the electronic editions by four months. Other publishers are following suit, claiming consumers will not buy the hardcover at $27.00 if they can purchase it at a much lower price electronically.
-Refer to E-Books. If the $27.00 price of a new release came about because two or more publishers agreed on the same price they charge book resellers for the books,they would be participating in which type of illegal pricing activity?

A) price fixing
B) unfair trade practices
C) resale price maintenance
D) price discrimination
E) predatory pricing