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Apple CEO Tim Cook 'May Testify' in E-Books Antitrust Lawsuit

Lower prices tell the story

It would seem that Apple's argument is that Amazon's stranglehold on the market makes it ok for them to create a new reality that breaks Amazon's hold on the backs of the consumer. Ultimately the government protections should be in large part pointed towards the consumer, not protecting one of the richest companies in the world from lower profits than they would prefer. Bottom line is that since DOJ stepped in ebook prices have generally been lower. So I'm a fan.

I love ebooks. They are convenient and don't require me to continually add bookshelves. But I have trouble paying more for an ebook than for a physical book which actually required additional resources to produce, warehouse and ship. I'm just saying that there should be some sort of reduction in price for an ebook versus the physical book. And it is my observation that this has been more frequently true when Amazon has been on top of the pricing hill than when Apple was.
 
Squilly said:
Looks like the DoJ wants a small pot of gold themselves.
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They need the money because they have lots of drones on order since AG Holder announced
that Americans are fair game for expedited due process and unexpected silent death from the sky.


dreamdrone350.jpg
 
Rocketman said:
I publish books. I have a hard minimum wholesale price. That's my right. If Amazon unilaterally violates that it is "theft or conversion". Fact. No alleged.
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Thanks for responding. I'm in total agreement with you.

I too am a publisher, and I've experienced the same problem that you've apparently experienced — Amazon lowering our prices without our consent.

If you're interested, I'd like to discuss this issue — and possible action — more with you via PM.
 
Apple have done their bit to limit iBook's market

Apple have done their bit for anti-trust. iBooks is a horrible application that's truly awful to use. For a company that prides itself on usability, iBooks is the pits.

Skeuomorphism is the scourge of usability. It's a computer, not a book for goodness sake. It was kool back in the early 90's, but it's just plain awful now. Turning a page requires an uncomfortable gesture. The '3D' rendering of the page is just ugly.

I can't delete the awful iBooks application from my iPad, but I have moved it out of the way. Kindle -- which itself suffers from gross usability problems -- is much better. Similarly with Stanza.
 
prhammer said:
It would seem that Apple's argument is that Amazon's stranglehold on the market makes it ok for them to create a new reality that breaks Amazon's hold on the backs of the consumer. Ultimately the government protections should be in large part pointed towards the consumer, not protecting one of the richest companies in the world from lower profits than they would prefer. Bottom line is that since DOJ stepped in ebook prices have generally been lower. So I'm a fan.

I love ebooks. They are convenient and don't require me to continually add bookshelves. But I have trouble paying more for an ebook than for a physical book which actually required additional resources to produce, warehouse and ship. I'm just saying that there should be some sort of reduction in price for an ebook versus the physical book. And it is my observation that this has been more frequently true when Amazon has been on top of the pricing hill than when Apple was.
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Your post here is exactly the problem: the perception that so long as prices are falling everything is okay.

Amazon seems ideologically committed to lowering prices to the absolute rock bottom. Nobody understands why. It sells cut price eReaders supposedly to sell more eBooks but it sells cut price eBooks to suppposedly sell more readers. It's margins are so thin its practically a non-proft organisation. The only possible explanation is the the board are happy with their big salaries and everything else can go to hell. Problem being, if a huge dominant retailer like Amazon isn't making profits how can anybody else? Amazon have forced their crippling business model on publishers and authors, neither of which were doing particularly well anyway.

Apple gave the publishers a way out. Just like with the music industry Apple didn't set out to disrupt and destroy jobs, they tried to give the publishers a way to set their own prices for their products and with luck make more revenue via an attractive storefront and purchasing experience. IMO iBooks is a far better shopping and discovery experience than Amazon's tacky automated bargain bin where everything just looks worthless the moment its rendered.

But its all for nothing if the DoJ wins. The population will continue to announce that they don't care so long as they save $2, and continue to criticise their government for failing to protect the economy and the very jobs those $2 savings are helping to dismantle.

Please feel free to announce that you don't care either, but when Amazon (or Google) move in on your industry you just might.
 
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The part that blows my mind is that Apple is getting trouble for not allowing publishers to sell their work cheaper anywhere else when Amazon does exactly that for independent authors. If I put a book up another platform and decide to discount it for a promotion or something, Amazon will automatically change the price on their store to the lower one without my consent.
 
iGrip said:
Thank God that corporations do not have the power to defy governments. Not yet anyways.
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Do you really think that? I think governments gave that power away a long time ago. Can't really speak for the US, but that's how it IS in europe. And I think it's the same in the US, with how the whole financial system interacts.
 
IJ Reilly said:
I think their chances of winning are practically zero. The argument that it's good for our business and bad for our competitors is going to cut no ice. In the end it's likely that it won't go to trial anyway. Almost none of them do, and the companies that do go to trial almost always regret it.
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I'm not saying that Apple is right. What I'm saying is that the government will have a difficult time proving their collusion case against Apple. If the government had brought Apple up on charges for anti-competive actions, it would have been a different story but, unless the government has the proverbial smoking gun, they have very little chance of winning this collusion case.

Apple will and should bring this case to trial. I actually think that the government will seek to drop the case since they managed to bully the rest of the publishers into accepting the agreement and it would be very bad to lose the case vs Apple (i.e. in the future, more companies would be willing to risk trial if Apple wins).
 
Fatalbert said:
Oh gee, price collusion. Why not target the biggest price colluders, the cell companies, for their organized price-gouging of SMS? It's the biggest ripoff I've ever seen.

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Same thing with HP wireless printers. They work maybe once over wifi if you're lucky.
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I ONLY print wirelessly on my HP printer. Desktop, laptop, iPod, iPad, & iPhone all print wirelessly to the same printer via wifi without any problems. Ever.
 
iGrip said:
Thank God that corporations do not have the power to defy governments. Not yet anyways.

Power has shifted over the centuries from the church to government. And now it is shifting again, towards the corporation.

If corporations become more powerful than governments, we will regret not having prevented it.
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In the past the church had the power.
Now the government has the power.
In the future corporations could have the power?

What's the common thread of all three?
All 3 were/are very corrupt at their core. Saying a change from government to corporate power is a bad thing is not true. You're just changing around who has the power. Corruption will exist, it'll just be a different group of people screwing over the public.
 
Plutonius said:
I'm not saying that Apple is right. What I'm saying is that the government will have a difficult time proving their collusion case against Apple. If the government had brought Apple up on charges for anti-competive actions, it would have been a different story but, unless the government has the proverbial smoking gun, they have very little chance of winning this collusion case.

Apple will and should bring this case to trial. I actually think that the government will seek to drop the case since they managed to bully the rest of the publishers into accepting the agreement and it would be very bad to lose the case vs Apple (i.e. in the future, more companies would be willing to risk trial if Apple wins).
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My sense is it's a slam-dunk, if only because the government rarely pushes these cases this far unless winning in court is virtually assured. Above and beyond the usual way these case proceed, the entire structure of the deal Apple was trying to set up screams collusion. This is by definition a violation of the Sherman Act, which was created in large part to address this very problem. Cartels are illegal. This has been the case in the U.S. for nearly 125 years, and the same goes for everywhere else in the developed world. Arguments to the contrary are mainly ideological and completely ahistorial, but that doesn't stop people from making them.

More than anything else, I am astonished that Apple ever thought they could get away with this, and am mystified by why they haven't followed their erstwhile partners in settling. Normally this is all the government is after. If Apple does continue to fight this, lacking any partners with which to proceed even if they could win (which the smart betting money says they can't) then it will be in pursuit of a misguided principle, at best. For the potential outcomes of pursing misguided principles, see: U.S. v. Microsoft.
 
My understanding of this and I could be wrong. Is like in the virgin british airways case, the others have given evidence against apple to get a smaller fine and no further action against them.
 
IJ Reilly said:
My sense is it's a slam-dunk, if only because the government rarely pushes these cases this far unless winning in court is virtually assured.
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That was true in the past but I don't believe it's the case today (the DoJ now throws it's weight around knowing that few can afford to fight it). We can agree that we disagree on the probable outcome but we will have to wait until the trial outcome to see who is right.
 
BaldiMac said:
This case actually takes your point even further. The Justice Department actually forced Apple to modify its contracts with the publishers as part of the publishers' settlement without any due process or settlement with Apple.
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This pierces the "private contracts" veil even further than the Microsoft anti-trust case.

I'm curious what other industries think of this. Most States REQUIRE similar "best price guarantee" in their purchasing contracts. Most health insurance plans dictate similar terms to Doctors and Hospitsls as well.

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Rocketman said:
I publish books. I have a hard minimum wholesale price. That's my right. If Amazon unilaterally violates that it is "theft or conversion". Fact. No alleged.
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But for many best sellers, they buy books by the pallet. Then sell them for pennies more to customers.... While normal bookstores have to mark up full price. As long as they pay your invoice you can't do anything about it... Even if they remainder half the pallet, they still stopped your OTHER bookstores from selling the books.
 
tongxinshe said:
The term should have been something like “Party B agrees to set iTunes’ book price within 1 hour after a lower price is offered to other parties, to match or beat that lower price”. The catch point is the current term missed “within xxx time frame”, making it impossible to be fair to any other parties.
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The problem is that Amazon unilaterally gives itself the right to put ebooks on sale... And the publishers have to take what the book is sold at. Of ebooks were treated like real books where there was risk of not selling physical copies it would be understandable.

So if Amazon bullies a publisher into cutting the price, then according to the contract the publisher has to offer all the other eBook stores the same price. Of course the incentive to give in to Amazon's "bully sales" goes away pretty quickly... Which means eBooks stay at MSRP a lot longer.

This is a way of keeping one big player from constantly TAKING sale prices on goods that aren't physical with no risk of inventory losses.
 
Plutonius said:
That was true in the past but I don't believe it's the case today (the DoJ now throws it's weight around knowing that few can afford to fight it). We can agree that we disagree on the probable outcome but we will have to wait until the trial outcome to see who is right.
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Not really. For one thing, the DoJ doesn't do this for giggles. They bring complaints when they think the complaint is supported by the law. What you are suggesting is that antitrust enforcement is somehow more aggressive now than it was in the past. It is, but only compared to enforcement in the Bush administration, which was virtually nil. Even so, compared to the EU, antitrust law enforcement remains relatively weak in the U.S.

I am hoping that no trial comes to pass. A trial would be very bad for Apple on every level. They'd stand to lose a lot and they have nothing to gain.

mabhatter said:
This pierces the "private contracts" veil even further than the Microsoft anti-trust case.
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What is the relevancy of this statement? If antitrust law could not "pierce private contracts" then antitrust law would be unenforceable. By their nature, trusts/combines/cartels are formed in private contracts.

See: South Improvement Company.
 
slattery69 said:
My understanding of this and I could be wrong. Is like in the virgin british airways case, the others have given evidence against apple to get a smaller fine and no further action against them.
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Not so. No fines were assessed or pursued as nearly as I can tell (it would be unusual if they were). The government is not seeking fines or further action. They are after a discontinuation of the violating behavior. This is how antitrust law enforcement works 99% of the time. Trials are extremely rare. However if the matter goes to a court and fact-finding, then watch out. Now Apple is exposed to private lawsuits and potentially huge damage claims. This is what happened to Microsoft.

Oddly, Apple has already settled a similar suit brought by the EU. Why they are still duking it out on this one is a mystery to me.
 
Nothing new here. Apple's doing the same thing the Robber Barons used to do in fixing prices to keep them high. They can try to make Amazon the villain, but the facts speak for themselves - book prices soared 200-300% after the Apple deal and there's no way Tim Crook can make that turd smell better.
 
stockscalper said:
Nothing new here. Apple's doing the same thing the Robber Barons used to do in fixing prices to keep them high. They can try to make Amazon the villain, but the facts speak for themselves - book prices soared 200-300% after the Apple deal and there's no way Tim Crook can make that turd smell better.
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Such a simplistic view of the world. Whoever sells things cheap is the hero. Whoever dares make a profit is a thief. Sad that some people are so easily bought.

Amazon are the villain. They've used their dominant position to bully book publishers into accepting outrageous terms. Those terms aren't for the benefit of customers. Their drive to to force eBook pricing at $10 or less is not because the poor oppressed people deserve $10 books. It so they have a tidy sales soundbite to drive customers away from physical books (where publishers can set their own terms) to the Kindle platform where Amazon's word is final. Basically Amazon are trying to control the entire concepts of books. They can't control the technology behind physical books, so they're trying to kill it in favour of their own. I find that pretty ugly and scary and hope they don't succeed.
 
mabhatter said:
As long as they pay your invoice you can't do anything about it.
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Yep. "As long as . . . . "

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IJ Reilly said:
Not really. For one thing, the DoJ doesn't do this for giggles. They bring complaints when they think the complaint is supported by the law.
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True enough, but some valid cases they decline to prosecute, and some cases they stretch the law to actively prosecute them. Dude, that's politics.

Care to show me the list of the top 40 fines issued in each of the last 5 years by any "regulator" (executive branch)? Please?
 
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