I can't really agree with the apparent conclusion that the agency model is a good thing. It's more or less a revival of retail price mandates, where the manufacturer dictates to retailers exactly what they must sell a product for, instead of selling it wholesale and letting the retailer set its own prices.<p>That sort of manufacturer-set price model is popular in Europe but generally not permitted in the US, because it's rather anticompetitive: it effectively prohibits retailers from competing with each other on price, because they have no control over prices. Europe likes that, because it keeps companies like Amazon and Wal-Mart from undercutting the local bookstore, if it's illegal to sell books under list price; but I'm not sure it's good for consumers or, more generally, efficient markets.