Yeah, cuz we're really raking Apple over the coals, huh? Hell, I saw Tim Cook in line at a soup kitchen last week...
FOR SHAME AMERICA SPELLED WITH A K SO IT SOUNDS ALL STASI-LIKE!
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Apple Files Formal Complaint Over Monitor Fees in E-Book Antitrust Case
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Yeah, cuz we're really raking Apple over the coals, huh? Hell, I saw Tim Cook in line at a soup kitchen last week...
FOR SHAME AMERICA SPELLED WITH A K SO IT SOUNDS ALL STASI-LIKE!
I think when you have to hire someone at $1025 an hour (and/or nearly the same rate you yourself are billing) for the express reason you do not know how to do the exact job you were hired to do, maybe you shouldn't have taken the job in the first place.
But then, lawyers and responsibility never have been on good terms.
But then, lawyers and responsibility never have been on good terms.
That would be like the criminals getting to hire the policeman. Exactly like it, in fact.
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Because he is one of the most accomplished legal investigators in the country. His experience is not specific to antitrust, but he knows how to see through the walls of obfuscation that companies under investigation throw up. What he's adding to his team is expertise on the specific are of law; not expertise in investigating corporations.
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Pretty much no one on this board knows anything on this subject. Hence the insightful comments.
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How rude of you to rain on the rant parade with your "research" and your "facts".
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Are you always like this?
I know, really. This is too much. Must've had too much to drink.
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News flash: Apple was never charged nor found guilty of committing any anti-trust activities. They conspired with other companies to engage in anti-trust activities. There's a difference.
If there was a company found guilty of installing car engines that are capable of exceeding street legal speed limits, should they be monitored by lawyers who expertise is monitoring automobile speeding?
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No, it's more like hiring an auditor.
Instead, we have a case which resembles police demanding bribes. The police should be paid with tax money. If Apple is to be fiscally punished, the fines should be collected by the court, not by the officer.
This has always been about making a point. Apple pays fines, plus $2m/year to this guy. Apple probably pays more for toilet paper. The real purpose is to be a constant annoyance.
The sad thing is that books are really underpriced and it's Amazon's fault. When you sell books that cheap you're really screwing over the writers. They only get about 10% of cover price. Even the writers who get decent sales are only averaging a middle-class income. Apple's pay model would have helped them a great deal. Why shouldn't publishers get to set their own price, rather than suffering at Amazon's hands?
The sad thing is that books are really underpriced and it's Amazon's fault. When you sell books that cheap you're really screwing over the writers. They only get about 10% of cover price. Even the writers who get decent sales are only averaging a middle-class income. Apple's pay model would have helped them a great deal. Why shouldn't publishers get to set their own price, rather than suffering at Amazon's hands?
Is this the way the court to retaliate Apple for conspiring to raise the retail price of e-books by allowing lawyers charging exorbitant fees to Apple? So the court is no better than Apple. This makes suspicious of the court's authority to judge Apple. The courts have disappointed me many times before.
Apple got off way easy. Apple should have been hit up with a huge punitive fine, big enough that it would make then think twice of ever doing it again. Maybe a few Billion. But instead they get a bill for $135,000. That amount is so small that it is below a round-off error on an Apple finaltial report.
This price fixing thing iwas not a civil law suit it was a CRIMINAL conviction. They were convicted of in effect stealing millions of dollars from consumers by forming an illegal criminal conspiracy. Maybe you don't like the law but Apple broke it.
They got off way easy, not even a slap on the wrist.
If you look at this as a shakedown of Apple by the administration and their friends, it makes more sense. Apple clearly isn't donating enough to political parties and they want their rightful slice of Apple's profits.
Book companies are pretty good at price fixing, without Apple.
Government isn't the only sector where people with no experience get appointed to jobs they can't do.
Filthy lucre. That's all it is.
The point is - the government wants control over Apple's business, that's why they weren't fined, which would have been the normal practise. A fine would have gone to those that suffered the book companies' greed, or to public funds.
The conviction was predetermined and wrong. Everything follows from my initial observation. It's a shakedown.
Book companies are pretty good at price fixing, without Apple.
Government isn't the only sector where people with no experience get appointed to jobs they can't do.
Filthy lucre. That's all it is.
The point is - the government wants control over Apple's business, that's why they weren't fined, which would have been the normal practise. A fine would have gone to those that suffered the book companies' greed, or to public funds.
The conviction was predetermined and wrong. Everything follows from my initial observation. It's a shakedown.
Amazon is the company that is breaking the law, selling e-books under cost to freeze out the competition! They have over 80% of the market! Apple did not break the law, but Amazon sure does, every day!
you're high. case aside, 4-digit hourly for no experience is criminal. I'm a well seasoned enterprise dev in fortune 100, I get a fraction of that. why should a court appointed attorney get so much?
do tell.
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you forgot the other grand an hour for the partner with experience in the matter.
6 man full time operation? riiight....
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iphone: $0
ipod: $50
ipad: $329
mac: $599
mabook air: $999
...most of which are industry-leading products. the apple tax is a myth.
Yeah right...show me where you can get a iPhone out of contract for $0. iPhone 5S 64GB is $1129 in Australia.
I suspect that hourly figure is not being explained appropriately. It's unlikely that they are getting one individual for that. As for the iphone part, are you just trying to be disingenuous? The iphone is not $0. Apple is not giving it to you. Your mobile provider pays for it. You pay your mobile provider. It is not free. Free would mean Apple takes a loss on each one sold.
Did you stop right there, or did you bother to think about why it seems that way? How likely are you to run afoul of antitrust laws if you are not in a position of success? Your success doesn't put you there, and I find it difficult to believe you formed a direct connection, then neglected to type it.
How rude of you to rain on the rant parade with your "research" and your "facts".
If only his "facts" were, indeed, factual.
No, the court conspired with Amazon which feared Apple competition. Each book is priced differently on the iBooks store. How could Apple fix the price? Do you know each book is only published by one publisher?
The court should have sued Microsoft for price fixing many years ago. MS had a monopoly of Windows OS with over 90% of market. MS making billions of selling/licensing Windows OS each year. Its cost is far less than that. MS could have lowered Windows OS fess for much less than $100 and still make a lot of money. This is price fixing. MS is stealing billions of dollars from consumers by being a monopoly. The stupid US court did not sue MS. I have no real trust on the court.
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Microsoft was actually prosecuted at one point over using their clout to push their browser. What you suggest isn't actually the same as what is claimed here. There isn't any claim that Apple set their own prices too high. As far as I can tell, the rough claims were that they brokered price agreements through their agency model, and they dictated the prices that could be offered to others. Can you show how it corresponds to what you have suggested? If Apple purchased ebooks wholesale, then went on to charge $100 per book, do you think they would have been met with these charges?
If Steve were alive he would beat the crap out of that dude. Key his car too. Lawyers are absolute garbage and don't deserve anything. Talentless garbage.
The reason why these shakedowns by regulators always work despite scant evidence or law is because they have UNILATERAL authority. Any attempt to sue for redress requires you first prove they are arbitrary and capricious. Short of accomplishing that IN ADVANCE the standard of justice in court is "PRESUMPTION OF CORRECTNESS BY THE REGULATOR." Very difficult to overcome.
I saw it happen once, but the regulator had to do a bunch of stupid stuff, strong-arm the judge, and outright lie, to hand it to us. That judge got tired of the BS so transferred to the FISA court where there is even less adversarial permission by the harmed.
This administration believes in tax, spend, borrow, fine, mandate, monologue. Big upgrade from the last guy!
Read Greenspan's new book. The government set-up the big recession through mortgage regulations, then fined banks for offering the loans they were mandated to. Same sucker-punch here.
When can we sue for redress against the government and have the fines and treble damages transferred to our accounts, the citizens. With "financial repression" (long term zero rates, harming savers) firmly in place to offset the fiscal extremes on the part of the Senate and President (tax and spend and borrow), it will be a long time until employment and growth rebounds. The Fed sure isn't going to change until the FEDGOV has something approaching a balanced budget. You know pretty much ANY budget in 5 years!
FEDGOV does something similar everywhere a regulator has authority, because it can.
Rocketman
cite:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/316106-1
Start at 31:00
I saw it happen once, but the regulator had to do a bunch of stupid stuff, strong-arm the judge, and outright lie, to hand it to us. That judge got tired of the BS so transferred to the FISA court where there is even less adversarial permission by the harmed.
This administration believes in tax, spend, borrow, fine, mandate, monologue. Big upgrade from the last guy!
Read Greenspan's new book. The government set-up the big recession through mortgage regulations, then fined banks for offering the loans they were mandated to. Same sucker-punch here.
When can we sue for redress against the government and have the fines and treble damages transferred to our accounts, the citizens. With "financial repression" (long term zero rates, harming savers) firmly in place to offset the fiscal extremes on the part of the Senate and President (tax and spend and borrow), it will be a long time until employment and growth rebounds. The Fed sure isn't going to change until the FEDGOV has something approaching a balanced budget. You know pretty much ANY budget in 5 years!
FEDGOV does something similar everywhere a regulator has authority, because it can.
Rocketman
cite:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/316106-1
Start at 31:00
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Can any one enlighten me why this PRICE FIXING is a CRIME? I remember about ten years ago Bestbuy tried to sell iMacs with a discount of $100. Jobs was not happy and terminated Bestbuy. It took several years before Bestbuy is allowed to sell Apple products.
I think Amazon is desperate. It used the advantage of tax free to hurt many retailers. Because of this many retailers like CompUSA and Circuit City were forced to close. Amazon was not sued by the courts.