« | Home | Recent Comments | Categories | »

US government sues Apple in e-book scandal

Posted on April 12th, 2012 at 5:10 by Sueyourdeveloper in category: News -- Write a comment

Quote

The US Justice Department has sued Apple Inc and five publishing houses alleging a “conspiracy” to raise prices and limit competition for e-books, and immediately reached a partial settlement in the case.

As the antitrust suit was announced, officials said three of the publishers agreed to end the scheme to force retailers such as Amazon to accept a new pricing plan that limited their ability to offer discounts for electronic books.

Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster reached the settlement but the case will proceed against Apple and the other two, Macmillan and Penguin Group, “for conspiring to end e-book retailers’ freedom to compete on price,” the Justice Department said.

Is this Revenge of the Librarians? Nope, that was Random House. Or perhaps their incantations didn’t specify which purveyor of ebooks they were after. You gotta be careful with what you ask for.

 

  1. John Sinteur on April 12th, 2012 at 8:48:

    [Quote]:

    It is also hard to settle a lawsuit when you know you have done no wrong. The government’s charge is that Macmillan’s CEO colluded with other CEO’s in changing to the agency model. I am Macmillan’s CEO and I made the decision to move Macmillan to the agency model. After days of thought and worry, I made the decision on January 22nd, 2010 a little after 4:00 AM, on an exercise bike in my basement. It remains the loneliest decision I have ever made, and I see no reason to go back on it now.

    Other publishers have chosen to settle. That is their decision to make. We have decided to fight this in court. Because others have settled, there may well be a preponderance of references to Macmillan, and to me personally, in the Justice Department’s papers – often without regard to context. So be it.

    I hope you will agree with our stance, and with Scott Turow, the president of the Author’s Guild, who stated, “The irony of this bites hard: our government may be on the verge of killing real competition in order to save the appearance of competition. This would be tragic for all of us who value books and the culture they support”.

  2. Desiato on April 12th, 2012 at 11:03:

    More growing pains of the digital age. If this wasn’t a decision made in the context of a struggle with an 800lb gorilla, would we look at it the same way?

    I noticed that Macmillan CEO John Sargent says it was “the loneliest decision [he] ever made” but does not explicitly say that he had not communicated with other CEOs before making the decision.

  3. Desiato on April 12th, 2012 at 11:05:

    PS: Amazon helped save the music industry from an iTunes monopoly, and now Apple is trying to help save the book industry from an Amazon monopoly?

previous post: Crazy MIDI Controllers: Turntable Rider

next post: George Zimmerman charged with second-degree murder in Trayvon Martin shooting